Rosemary Williams outside of her home
of 23 years. She is fighting foreclosure
eviction in the courts. Her resistance is
one more dramatic step in the battle to
build a movement to stop foreclosures
in America.
PHOTO /CRAIG STELLMACHER

‘CALL FOR A MORATORIUM ON EVICTIONS

By Sandy Perry


Sixty year-old Rosemary Williams, a mother of three, went to court in Hennepin County, Minnesota on May 26. She took a stand against foreclosure eviction from her home of 23 years. Her resistance is one more dramatic step in the battle to build a movement to stop foreclosures in America.
“Housing is a human right and we need a moratorium on home foreclosures,” said Ms. Williams. “I am taking a stand for all people facing homelessness from foreclosures and evictions from foreclosed properties. We cannot be sacrificed to the greed of bankers and mortgage companies.”

Ms. Williams has lived in the Central Neighborhood of South Minneapolis for 55 years. Hundreds of her friends and neighbors have signed a legal request to intervene in her case. They have packed the courtroom during her appearances, and have vowed to commit non-violent civil disobedience to block any attempt to evict her by force. Six other families in the area are also preparing to resist similar threatened evictions.

The Williams case is part of a growing movement against foreclosures, organized by numerous national and local groups, including the Poor Peoples Economic Human Rights Campaign (PPEHRC).

“We’re asking for a moratorium on evictions, foreclosures, and sheriff sales until we can deal with this serious affordable housing crisis in our country,” said PPEHRC national organizer Cheri Honkala. She announced a campaign to move homeless people into vacant foreclosed homes, to hold picket lines and sit-ins to stop sheriff sales, and to organize civil disobedience to resist foreclosures and evictions.

In February the government unveiled a plan to help seven to nine million American homeowners modify their loans to make them affordable, but it is not working. It attempts to cajole and subsidize financial corporations to get them to act in the public interest, but they are predators that will never do that.

For one thing, almost all the loans have been packaged into mortgage security bonds that make modification so complicated as to be practically impossible. For another, the plan fails to take into account the fact that loan modifications will be further blocked by continuing depreciation of home prices and rising unemployment. Finally, President Obama’s plan for modification of mortgages by bankruptcy judges was resoundingly rejected by the Senate, because, as one legislator said, the banks “frankly own the place.”

The underlying reason the plan will fail is that it is based on the false assumption that the global economy is fundamentally sound, and can be repaired with a few minor “Keynesian” adjustments. The reality is that the economy is irreparably broken, and no amount of tinkering will be able to put it back together again. The technological revolution is step by step eliminating all human labor as it moves toward total computerization and automation. Without human work, and money in the hands of human workers, people increasingly can no longer afford housing and other necessities, commodities can no longer circulate, and the economy grinds to a halt.

We are entering a period of systemic change. A new economy is ready to be born, but it will require millions of creative and inspired human beings like Rosemary Williams to build it. At times like this, we need to turn to our deepest, historic, moral and spiritual values to guide us. Will we get involved and create a cooperative new economy, founded on human dignity, and the economic human right to food, clothing, housing, and health care? Or will we sit back, and allow the system to evolve into one of deeper exploitation, poverty, and slavery? The outcome depends on us.