Local Residents Meet With FHFA Director Mel Watt To Push for Relief for Chicago Area Families

A homeowner and tenants with the Chicago Anti-Eviction Campaign joined families facing foreclosure from 15 cities across the country in a face to face meeting with FHFA Director Mel Watt, yesterday.

Shirley Henderson, a homeowner, and Toussaint Losier, a tenant, will make the case for principal reduction for underwater homeowners as part of a comprehensive set of solutions to keep families in their homes. They will highlight the human consequences of a lingering housing crisis that continues to hold back struggling neighborhoods in Chicago and across the country.

Residents spoke to press following the meeting.

The meeting was held at the Federal Housing Finance Agency, 400 7th Street SW, Washington DC

Chicago Anti-Eviction Campaign’s Henderson and Losier join impacted homeowners and tenants in need of principal reduction who are members of Right to the City Alliance and Center for Popular Democracy.

It marks the first time a grassroots coalition of directly impacted homeowners and tenants will meet with FHFA Director Mel Watt face-to-face. After four years of public pressure on the FHFA, at the end of 2014, Director Mel Watt announced that he would allow homeowners to buy back their homes at fair market value and fund the National Housing Trust Fund. Residents will thank him for making these changes and ask him to enact principal reduction to prevent hundreds of thousands of foreclosures. Many of the residents in attendance are underwater on their mortgages and need principal reduction to prevent their foreclosure or alternative relief to avoid eviction.

For more information, contact:  Toussaint Losier, toussaint@chicagoantieviction.org, 773-236-0559