When Liset Herrera's apartment building was foreclosed upon, she said the bank instructed her not to pay rent until a new contract was sent.
Six months later, the bank is evicting every family in her fourplex for failure to pay back rent after never mailing out its contract.
"I pleaded with the bank to give us a chance to pay the rent, to allow us to stay," Herrera, 36, of North Hollywood, said through a Spanish translator, her voice breaking as she clutched her 3-month-old daughter. "I've pleaded with the bank to have a heart."
Housing advocates on Thursday gathered in front of Herrera's run-down apartment building during a nationwide protest against unfair evictions and for greater banking accountability.
They said despite a federal program to help modify mortgages, thousands of properties are being lost to foreclosure. As a result, many poor families are being booted.
Families are being uprooted. Children are being removed from school. Properties are not being maintained.
And neighborhoods are falling into blight.
"President Obama's plan is not working for California. Simply put, it's not working for Arizona, it's not working for Florida," said Nativo Lopez, president of the Los Angeles-based Mexican American Political Association. "It's an infamy ... these people are being evicted from their homes."
Hoisting signs such as "Stop Evictions Now," advocates for the poor called upon banks to permit renters to live in foreclosed homes while ensuring such properties are maintained.
They also called upon banks to loosen credit to small businesses to preserve jobs in low-income communities.
"We are concerned," said Antonio Pizano, program director for the Valley Economic Development Center. "We have particularly seen an impact to the owners of minority businesses, who have traditionally used their homes as collateral."
The nationwide day of protest was organized by the National Community Reinvestment Coalition, an advocate for working families.
"As the bailout of the financial system continues, working families have been left behind," John Taylor, who heads the coalition, said in a statement.
A federal law passed last month requires that tenants in foreclosed properties be allowed to live there 90 days.
The California Bankers Association said it is the legal responsibility of banks holding foreclosed properties to maintain them, inside and out.
"As an industry, we were supportive of the law that extended eviction notices to tenants living in foreclosed properties," said Beth Mills, vice president of communications for the association. "We also supported legislation that specifically required maintenance to reduce blight.
"Financial institutions are doing their best to help people stay in their homes whenever possible. Some of these demonstrations ignore that fact. (Banks) don't want to be property owners."
After her complex in the 5800 block of Whitnall Highway was foreclosed, Herrera said she received a call from a bank in November instructing her not to pay any rent until a new contract was delivered.
Months went by, with tenants not knowing where to send their payments, she said. No rental contract ever came.
Then the mother of three said someone calling themselves a bank rep dropped by two weekend nights in April to demand five months back rent. The caller had no identification or formal lease agreement.
In the meantime, the small stucco apartment building - which had already received health and safety citations from the city and the county - fell further into disrepair.
A lawyer from U.S. Bank National Association, the bank representing the property owner, Terwin Mortgage Trust, could not be reached Thursday.
On Thursday, the two-bedroom apartment that Herrera and her husband had once paid $700 a month for was a dump - with scuzzy carpet, peeling paint, a busted sink, broken stove, crumbling cabinets, dangling ceiling wires and chipped electrical sockets.
Outside, the landscaping had turned dead brown.
The tenants have been given a court order to move by June 19.
"This was totally unfair," said Hermes Ayala of the San Fernando Valley Housing Coalition, which advocated their case. "In my opinion, these people were protected by federal laws and municipal laws.
They have been "abandoned, totally. This is a habitable issue, when the landlord didn't fix the property."
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