Lynn activists to march at home foreclosure rally

LYNN-Nine Lynn social advocacy groups plan to march through the city streets on March 28 to protest business practices at Bank of America that led to the nation’s foreclosure crisis.The marchers are scheduled to gather at the VFW Post 507, 90 High Rock St. at 10 a.m. and wend their way along Rockaway, Joyce, Union. Munroe and Market streets to the Bank of America branch office at 1 State St.According to Leslie Greenberg, a spokeswoman for The Highlands Coalition, the protest is aimed at the bank’s mortgage practices and its use of taxpayer bailout funds to keep workers down by lobbying against the proposed Employee Free Choice Act.The act would protect the rights of employees who band together in an effort to unionize and bargain collectively with their employer.”We’re marching again, this time against Bank of America’s mortgage practices, which helped create the housing crisis. Bank of America took our $45 billion, but is not doing enough to help its customers save their homes,” said Greenberg, who has been urging local residents to march. “Your kids will learn that their parents are fighting for them too.”Referring to former President George Bush’s comment that some businesses are simply too big to fail, Greenberg said these corporate giants must become more responsible and responsive to the citizens.A Bank of America press release Thursday said “ethnic communities hardest hit by the foreclosure crisis will receive much needed resources to help preserve homeownership thanks to a new national coalition: The Alliance for Stabilizing our Communities ? led by the National Urban League, the National Council of La Raza, and the National Coalition for Asian Pacific American Community Development.”According to the bank, the alliance “will assist multi-cultural homeowners facing foreclosures identify and procure the best housing solutions.”The alliance purportedly will “direct new resources to a nationwide network of local housing counseling entities in 27 communities with numbers of multicultural homeowners at risk of foreclosure above the national average.”As part of the bank’s $35 million neighborhood preservation and foreclosure prevention package announced last year, the alliance will receive $2.5 million from bank to provide additional counselors in local markets; train new and existing counselors; provide multi-language outreach materials to educate at-risk borrowers about their options; and create a new resource guide to help communities respond to foreclosure challengesThe alliance will also organize 40 home retention fairs that are expected to serve more than 11,000 households, according to the bank.These fairs are to provide on-site counseling services by U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development-approved alliance nonprofits in multiple languages.Last year, the bank announced it will offer loan modifications over the next three years to as many as 630,000 of its customers, including those with mortgages from Countrywide Mortgage, which together represent more than $100 billion in mortgage financing.The other local groups participating in the rally include the North Shore Labor Council, IUE-CWA Local 201, Neighbor to Neighbor, Jobs with Justice, Lynn United for Change, UE North East Region, ECCO, and 1199SEIU United Healthcare Workers East.Greenberg said Bank of America evicts tenants after not accepting their rent in order to speculate on the vacant property. At least 314 homes were foreclosed in Lynn in the past 180 days, 26 of which were owned by Bank of America, she said.The rally organizers noted on a printed flier being distributed in Lynn that Bank of America Chief Executive Officer Kenneth D. Lewis made $1.5 million in salary, $11 million in stock bonuses, $4.5 million in options and $4.3 million in non-equity incentive plan compensation, for a total income of $21.3 million.Greenberg said the rally is a protest against corporate welfare and corruption, and in support of bank regulation.For more information ab