Kevin McCoy

USA TODAY

Owners who lost their homes to mortgage foreclosures by a bank previously run by Steven Mnuchin urged the Senate on Wednesday to reject his nomination as President-elect Trump's Treasury secretary.

Speaking at a Capitol Hill forum convened by Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass. — a frequent Trump critic — the homeowners said OneWest Bank or an affiliate intensified the financial hardships they faced amid the 2008 financial crisis by foreclosing on their homes.

Christina Clifford said she paid the mortgage for her $162,000 condominium in Whittier, Calif., on time from 2001 until 2008 when her acupuncture business foundered along with the national economy. Although Clifford said she followed the bank's instructions for seeking a lower monthly repayment, OneWest twice said it had not received her paperwork — even though the documents had been included with payment checks the bank cashed. OneWest foreclosed in 2009.

"It felt as if they saw an opportunity to make a good chunk of money and they took it," Clifford said during a phone interview in which she accused the bank and Mnuchin of unfairly profiting from her misfortune.

"I think it's very frightening prospect to have a man like that in the seat of power at the U.S. Treasury," added Clifford, who fought back sobs as she described her experience during the forum.

Responding to a request for comment on Clifford's comments and similar personal stories and criticism from three other forum participants who struggled with OneWest foreclosures, spokesman Barney Keller said Mnuchin "looks forward to answering questions from the members of the Senate Finance Committee.”

The multi-millionaire business executive plans to testify at Thursday's hearing that he was "maligned as taking advantage of others' hardships in order to earn a buck," Reuters reported, citing a look at a written statement Mnuchin submitted to the Finance panel. "Nothing could be further from the truth," added Mnuchin.

CIT Group, which now includes OneWest as a division, did not return a phone message seeking comment.

Foreclosures on troubled subprime mortgage loans originated by the previous incarnation of OneWest had started rising before Mnuchin took over. Mortgage foreclosures similarly spiked at other large financial institutions amid the financial crisis.

In a Jan.10th blog post for The Hill, Casey Crawford, a co-founder of Movement Mortgage, a large, North Carolina-headquartered mortgage bank, cited a Treasury record that showed OneWest offered delinquent borrowers more than 100,000 mortgage modifications through September 2013 via a federal program.

In contrast, HSBC last year agreed to a $470 million federal and state settlement to address alleged mortgage origination, servicing and foreclosure abuses.

"Mnuchin’s critics want us to focus on the tiny percentage of mortgages that couldn’t be feasibly restructured or under various circumstances were not saved," wrote Crawford. "We cannot let such tactics distract us from the more important issues."

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Warren convened the session after reporting that Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, chairman of the Senate Committee on Finance, rejected a request to hear the homeowners stories as part of Mnuchin's scheduled confirmation hearing on Thursday. Hatch spokesman Aaron Fobes said the committee's longtime practice allows panel members and the public to submit materials for the record.

Hatch "will maintain that standard," said Fobes, who added that the committee chairman "is committed to holding (Trump) nominees to the same, bipartisan vetting and hearing process afforded to Obama's nominees."

There's much vetting to do, in Warren's view.

"Unfortunately, judging by Mr. Mnuchin's tenure as the head of OneWest Bank, there is significant evidence that he has no interest in working for the benefit of all Americans," she said in prepared statements for the forum. She charged that the bank gained a reputation as a "foreclosure machine" under Mnuchin, a former Goldman Sachs banker, hedge fund executive, and movie industry executive who last year served as Trump's national campaign finance chairman.

OneWest, based in Pasadena, Calif., foreclosed on more than 36,000 California families and 24,000 additional households around the country, according to a study of banking data by the Urban Strategies Council, an Oakland-based anti-poverty organization, and the California Reinvestment Coalition, an advocate for low-income areas and communities of color.

The foreclosures occurred after Mnuchin led wealthy investors who bought the failed IndyMac Bank from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation during the U.S. financial crisis and transformed it into OneWest. He and the other investors, including international financier George Soros, hedge fund manager John Paulson, computer manufacturer Michael Dell, and private equity investor Christopher Flowers more than doubled their investment by selling OneWest to CIT Group for $3.4 billion in 2015.

CRC Executive Director Paulina Gonzalez said 2013 Treasury Department data showed that One West had one of the highest denial rates for applications to the Home Affordable Modification Program, the federal government's chief foreclosure prevention effort.

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Other consumers who told the forum about OneWest experiences included:

Colleen Ison-Hodroff, an 84-year-old Minneapolis resident whose husband got a reverse mortgage on their fully-paid home through OneWest subsidiary Financial Freedom. Days after her husband died, she received OneWest notification to either repay the reverse mortgage in full or face foreclosure.

Heather McCreary, from Sparks, Nev., who joined her husband in trying to obtain a loan modification after they lost income during the financial crisis. She said the bank kept her family, including twin boys, dangling, and then abruptly foreclosed. She said Senate confirmation of Mnuchin would be an "insult to my family" and others.

Sylvia Oliver, a Scotch Plains, N.J., resident who said she unsuccessfully tried for years to get a lower loan payment. OneWest was originally scheduled to foreclose on her home on Wednesday but granted a 30-day extension.

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"Some may note that other banks had more foreclosures in California and nationally, and this is certainly true," said Gonzalez in a statement prepared for the forum. "But we have labeled OneWest a 'foreclosure machine' not only because it foreclosed on more than 60,000 American families and because of its aggressive foreclosure practices, but because it seemed to do little else."

Follow USA TODAY reporter Kevin McCoy on Twitter: @kmccoynyc