Auction of foreclosed homes draws protest

By John Catalinotto
New York

Mar 15, 2009

No event is so tragic that U.S. financiers and brokers won't look for a way to make money from it. It's a relief when someone exposes them for the vultures they are.

Joy Simmons, a Brooklyn housing activist, speaks at March 8 protest. photos: John Catalinotto

Millions of homes are being foreclosed around the country. The Real Estate Disposition Corporation is joyful about its prospect for profits this year. REDC hopes to pump up its profits this year, when it expects to run three home auctions in the New York area alone, where last year it held none.

REDC has “the ignominious reputation of being the largest private foreclosed homes auctioneer in the world,” according to a release by the Bail Out the People Movement.

REDC scheduled its first such all-day auction March 8 at the vast Javits Center on Manhattan’s West 35th Street. BOPM called a news conference and picket early that morning outside the center to protest this latest assault on the poor. Those who came out represented community groups, unions and progressive elected officials fighting the foreclosure plague.

Joy Nayo Simmons, chief of staff for New York City Council member Charles Barron, backed the protest and represented the progressive Black political leader.

Charles Jenkins, union activist.

BOPM spokesperson Larry Holmes called the picketers “freedom fighters.” He said their intervention had successfully changed the message of the event from “How can people get a bargain buying a home?” to “What happened to the families who were foreclosed on?”

“Are these people being bailed out, as is Bank of America and AIG?” he asked. “The answer is no.”

Holmes’ group has called for a demonstration on Wall Street at 1 p.m. on April 3.

The theme of the April 3 march is “Bail out people, not banks,” said Holmes, adding, “We consider the housing crisis at the center of our work, and when we march on Wall Street we will demand a national moratorium on foreclosures and evictions.”

New York unionist Chris Silvera, secretary-treasurer of Teamsters Local 808 and active in many progressive causes, spoke up for the foreclosed homeowners and called attention to the still-dispossessed former residents of New Orleans, the Katrina survivors.

Sharon Black, facing a possible foreclosure herself on her Baltimore home, told how a popular struggle in Baltimore had convinced the City Council there to propose a year-long moratorium on foreclosures in that overwhelmingly working-class and majority African-American city. “Only three council members out of 14 did not sign on to sponsor the bill,” Black said. She asked for support from everyone at a March 24 council hearing to discuss the bill.

Brenda Stokely, from the Million Workers March, called on activists to keep on organizing as the crisis hits more and more people around the country. Charles Jenkins, a labor activist from Take Back Our Union, also spoke at the short rally ending the protest.

Without the BOPM protest, media coverage would have been limited to showing happy new homeowners and even happier brokers from REDC. Instead, it reflected the potential for a fightback.