Eyewitness Report on New York City Council hearings with Jesse Jackson, on January 5th, Saturday-- Councilman Leroy Comrie, from the 27-th Council District led the hearings. They featured Jesse Jackson of PUSH, Sheila Jackson Lee (D- Tex) and John Conyers (D-Mich). Also prominent was (white) NY City Councilman Lou Fiddler, from Canarsie, Brooklyn.
The general scam of subprime mortgages was discussed. ARMs are adjustable Rate Mortgages. They start at 0% or a low percentage. Then they jump after a year or a couple of years to 12.5% or more, and monthly payments also increase. For example, in one case, the monthly payments increased after a year, from $3300 a month to $5800 per month.
Last year, nearly 1/5 of the mortgages issued in New York City were subprime. Now, housing prices are down 3.8% in New York City and 9.7% in New York State as a whole. There are huge losses on property taxes. The tax base is collapsing in many towns across the nations, and this is hitting Afro-American and Hispanic neighborhoods the hardest.
An anti-predatory lending bill was passed several years ago by the NY City Council, but was struck down by the Federal Court. Pres. Bush has a program to deal with changing high mortgage interest rates to lower fixed rate mortgages, but it will help only about 10-percent of people if they apply. That is too low to make a difference. The industry has to be re-regulated. This is hitting Harlem, South Queens and other heavily minority areas.
Jesse Jackson continued the spiel. He said that whole neighborhoods are being driven into a depression, and he showed some sort of a map. Banks have an $80-billion dollar write-down that is going toward $500-billion. The Saudi and other foreign interests are bailing out Citibank and other large banks. The rural economy is being poisoned. This went on and on, but it had the quality of militant begging. Why don’t they just say, freeze the mortgages, make rental payments, the system is finished?
And hello from the t-shirt queen, and I Love Harlem.
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