The event, spon­sored by the groups Com­mu­ni­ties Unit­ed Against Fore­clo­sure and Evic­tion (CUAFE), Chica­go Anti-Evic­tion Cam­paign (CAEC), and Cen­tro Autonomo of Albany Park, was billed as a chance for local politi­cians to hear the con­cerns of those direct­ly affect­ed by the crises of fore­clo­sure and evic­tion, as well as an oppor­tu­ni­ty to sign on to the demand for an evic­tion mora­to­ri­um. And while orga­niz­ers and atten­dees did not leave with any firm com­mit­ments from either Dart or Preck­win­kle, the tes­ti­monies of affect­ed fam­i­lies show­cased both the sever­i­ty of the cri­sis and the strength of a grow­ing hous­ing movement.

That night near­ly 150 com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers gath­ered at the UE union hall in Chicago’s West Loop for a pub­lic meet­ing with Cook Coun­ty Sher­iff Tom Dart and Cook Coun­ty Board Pres­i­dent Toni Preck­win­kle to demand a one-year mora­to­ri­um on evic­tions in the coun­ty, which cov­ers the city of Chica­go and sur­round­ing suburbs.

The country’s hous­ing cri­sis has con­tin­ued to acute­ly affect res­i­dents of Chica­go, which a 2011 study con­clud­ed has the ​“high­est num­ber of fore­closed and idle homes of any Amer­i­can metrop­o­lis.” As I report­ed for the Occu­pied Chica­go Tri­bune this March, Chica­go also faced the sec­ond high­est evic­tion rate in the coun­try in 2011 and by March 2009, more than 100 Chica­go-area home­own­ers were receiv­ing a fore­clo­sure notice every day.

Since then, this trend has con­tin­ued to inten­si­fy. A recent Hous­ing Pre­dic­tor analy­sis projects that the Oba­ma Administration’s chief hous­ing czar’s deci­sion to reject prin­ci­pal mort­gage reduc­tions for under­wa­ter home­own­ers will result in at least 750,000 addi­tion­al fore­clo­sures nation­wide. CUAFE orga­niz­er Keean­ga – Yamaht­ta Tay­lor, cit­ing a recent report, announced to the packed crowd that in Cook Coun­ty the num­ber of prop­er­ties that entered the fore­clo­sure process in June and July was over 7,500. Across the Chicagoland area, fore­clo­sure rates are up 37% from last year.

Tay­lor attrib­uted the fact that the vast major­i­ty of these fore­clo­sures are locat­ed on the city’s pre­dom­i­nant­ly African Amer­i­can and Lati­no pop­u­lat­ed South and West sides to ​“greed, eco­nom­ic and racial injus­tice.” And while May­or Rahm Emanuel took to the pages of the Chica­go Sun-Times on Tues­day to boast his administration’s suc­cess in cre­at­ing a ​“boom­ing” local econ­o­my, Tay­lor not­ed ​“almost two thirds of the city’s res­i­dents have been left behind” in this recov­ery, with res­i­dents of col­or espe­cial­ly hard-hit.

So while Emanuel touts the hand­ful of ​‘Sil­i­con Val­ley’ jobs the city is attract­ing, low-income com­mu­ni­ties con­tin­ue to be dev­as­tat­ed by the spate of fore­clo­sures and evic­tions that have been linked to Chicago’s soar­ing vio­lent crime and mur­der rates.

Toward a moratorium

J.R. Flem­ing, founder of the CAEC, direct­ed the meet­ing’s demand for a mora­to­ri­um to Sher­iff Dart, announc­ing that ​“it wouldn’t be the first time, it wouldn’t be the sec­ond time, it would be the third time, and I hear that the third time is a charm. We’re ask­ing you Tom Dart to grant that charm to peo­ple of Chica­go. We want a mora­to­ri­um, and we want it now.”

Indeed, in a move that gar­nered nation­al atten­tion, in Octo­ber 2008 Dart ordered a halt to all evic­tions in the coun­ty, stat­ing at the time, ​“these mort­gage com­pa­nies only see pieces of paper, not peo­ple, and don’t care who’s in the build­ing. They sim­ply want their mon­ey and don’t care who gets hurt along the way. On top of it all, they want tax­pay­ers to fund their inves­tiga­tive work for them. We’re not going to do their jobs for them any­more. We’re just not going to evict inno­cent ten­ants. It stops today.”

That mora­to­ri­um last­ed less than two weeks, how­ev­er. There­after, evic­tions resumed with light­en­ing pace. Then in Novem­ber 2010, Dart again made head­lines by issu­ing a sub­se­quent mora­to­ri­um, large­ly in response to the ​“robo-sign­ing” scan­dal and bal­loon­ing claims of fraud being com­mit­ted by lenders. That mora­to­ri­um last­ed almost a month, but was sus­pend­ed when Cook Coun­ty State’s Attor­ney Ani­ta Alvarez informed the Sheriff’s Office that by law all court ordered evic­tions must be car­ried out, regard­less of any claims of irreg­u­lar­i­ties. But despite the exis­tence of poten­tial legal bar­ri­ers, orga­niz­ers and par­tic­i­pants con­tend­ed that these pre­vi­ous actions by the sher­iff prove that anoth­er mora­to­ri­um is pos­si­ble, and need­ed now more than ever.

Com­mu­ni­ties speak out

In order to make this case, the meet­ing fea­tured the tes­ti­monies of over 20 indi­vid­u­als who have been direct­ly affect­ed by the hous­ing cat­a­stro­phe; home­own­ers, renters as well as pub­lic hous­ing and Sec­tion 8 res­i­dents. The speak­ers were bound togeth­er not only by their mutu­al expe­ri­ence fac­ing fore­clo­sure and evic­tion but also by their deter­mi­na­tion to stay in their residences.

Mary Bonelli’s fam­i­ly has lived in the same home in Chicago’s Bel­mont-Cra­gin neigh­bor­hood for three gen­er­a­tions, yet is now at risk of being thrown out by the bank that is ser­vic­ing her mortgage.

​“I am 76 years old and I’m dying of can­cer,” said Bonel­li. ​“But that’s not the rea­son I’m here today. It’s because Fifth Third bank is try­ing to take my house away from me. We moved here in 1958. The bank nev­er told me the house was in fore­clo­sure. I hired a lawyer but he dumped me. I want to stay in my home. That is why we need a one-year moratorium.”

Vir­ginia Morales’ fam­i­ly has lived in the same home in the Logan Square neigh­bor­hood for 27 years, yet is also fac­ing evic­tion despite repeat­ed appli­ca­tion for a loan mod­i­fi­ca­tion. ​“Banks have home­own­ers go through a loan mod­i­fi­ca­tion process while con­tin­u­ing to fore­close and auc­tion the home at the same time. My fam­i­ly has asked Citi­Mort­gage for a good faith nego­ti­a­tion. My par­ents have an under­wa­ter mort­gage, we know that the mar­ket val­ue on the house is not equal to the amount of mon­ey my par­ents owe the bank. Banks don’t lose any­thing on the loans; the Fed­er­al Gov­ern­ment bailed out the banks. Citibank was one the banks that received the most mon­ey from the government.”

Since Virginia’s fam­i­ly found out that they were in fore­clo­sure, they have tried mul­ti­ple times to con­tact bank offi­cials to work out a deal to stay in their home, only to be ignored. ​“They don’t answer phones, they don’t care about peo­ple. It’s time to wake up and real­ize this only leads to home­less­ness in Cook Coun­ty. The dam­age is done. This is why we need a mora­to­ri­um. We will not leave our house.”

Mar­cia Iza, a Bel­mont-Cra­gin res­i­dent who is fac­ing immi­nent evic­tion from her home, recount­ed her expe­ri­ence liv­ing with an abu­sive hus­band. ​“I am a vic­tim of domes­tic abuse. At the same time I’m a vic­tim of abuse by the banks. I’m sick of that,” Iza told the audience.

​“It all start­ed when my hus­band stopped pay­ing the mort­gage of the house and imme­di­ate­ly I con­tact­ed Wells Far­go to take this up. The bank said, ​‘we don’t need to talk to you.’ I explained that I’m on the title and they didn’t want to lis­ten to me. Nev­er­the­less I tried all the alter­na­tives I thought pos­si­ble and noth­ing worked. Final­ly I found Cen­tro Autonomo and since then they’ve been my sup­port. We did a protest in front of Wells Far­go and thanks to that we were able to talk to exec­u­tives at the bank and Fan­nie Mae. The bank gave me an offer to sell house to me but at a price triple what it’s worth. The abuse con­tin­ues, it doesn’t stop. And I said I’m not okay with this and not going to take it any­more. They are con­tin­u­ing with the evic­tion and I don’t know where I’m going. I have a card say­ing I have 90 days left in the house. Where am I going to go? I’m demand­ing a one-year mora­to­ri­um. Mr. Dart, where should I go?”

​“No house, no votes”

John Neu­mann is a for­mer mem­ber of the US Marines and spoke about his expe­ri­ence fac­ing evic­tion from the unit he rent­ed in his build­ing. ​“I did this coun­try great jus­tice and am here speak­ing for vet­er­ans. After serv­ing my coun­try I got a job work­ing with the state remov­ing snow. I came back one day from work and peo­ple were mov­ing my fur­ni­ture out of my home — in the win­ter. I saw no evic­tion order. When I went to court they told me I didn’t exist there. I didn’t plan a speech for this, its very sim­ple. I’m not leaving”

Neu­mann then turned his atten­tion to the pres­i­dent, whom he thinks needs to do more to address hous­ing injus­tice in Chica­go. ​“We didn’t fight for this coun­try for the banks to put us out. Barack, you need to come to Chica­go and help us change some of these laws. The same mil­i­tary that is pro­tect­ing you is the peo­ple being allowed to get evict­ed from our homes. I know you’ll do the right thing in Chica­go. Pres­i­dent Barack Oba­ma, we need you now. No house, no votes!”

This sen­ti­ment was echoed by San­dra Corn­well, a res­i­dent of the city’s Lath­rop Homes pub­lic hous­ing. ​“We need more. I became a bet­ter per­son because I was in pub­lic hous­ing. We are vibrant peo­ple. For the pres­i­dent, you need to come home and take care of your business.”

While these appeals to the pres­i­dent were met with rau­cous applause from the crowd, the major­i­ty of the speak­ers aimed their demands square­ly at the politi­cians in attendance.

​“I am a home­less senior; my hus­band is a home­less vet­er­an,” stat­ed Debra Miller. ​“There are over 90,000 home­less peo­ple in Chica­go, how many because of evic­tion and fore­clo­sure? This will affect our coun­try for years to come. The great USA can’t take care of its own. Tom Dart, if we could use sub­si­dies, and pub­lic hous­ing for assis­tance rather than fore­clo­sure and evic­tion that would help fam­i­lies. There are 3,000 vacant units in pub­lic hous­ing. Fill­ing them would help many fam­i­lies see the Amer­i­can dream. Toni Preck­win­kle, if you could work on fill­ing these units it would help immense­ly. This mora­to­ri­um can give time to those who need it. Hous­ing is a right, not a privilege.”

Politi­cians respond

Upon hear­ing the sto­ries of those affect­ed, as well as their appeals for an evic­tion mora­to­ri­um, both Sher­iff Dart and Pres­i­dent Preck­win­kle were giv­en the oppor­tu­ni­ty to respond.

​“I’ve seen injus­tice. For that rea­son we’ve altered our office. Social work­ers have been put on staff to work with home­own­ers. We’ve done a lot but that doesn’t mean we can’t do more,” said Dart.

​“The banks are doing things that if we did we’d go to prison, but they get away with it. They were fal­si­fy­ing doc­u­ments. Dur­ing the robo-sign­ing scan­dal I stopped fore­clo­sures again. The State’s Attorney’s Office said my office had to con­tin­ue enforc­ing evic­tions. But because I’m being forced to go through with evic­tions, we’ve opened up crim­i­nal inves­ti­ga­tions against the banks. They have very, very well paid lawyers and their clients won’t talk to us. We haven’t giv­en up in pur­su­ing these things. If peo­ple are com­mit­ting any offense, you need to call my office. They have a ten­den­cy to lis­ten to me more than oth­ers. What is going on is crim­i­nal. After two mora­to­ri­ums, I’ve shown that I’m not a talk­er, I’m an actor — I do things.”

Preck­win­kle was less direct in her response, and claimed that her office had lit­tle capa­bil­i­ty to offer solu­tions to the cri­sis. ​“The main busi­ness of the coun­ty is health­care and crim­i­nal jus­tice, not hous­ing. We are fac­ing the worst eco­nom­ic times in about 70 years, since the 1930s. The coun­ty is strug­gling to fig­ure out how to cope. There are great demands for ser­vice but dwin­dling resources. I’ve tak­en notes on the remarks from tes­ti­fiers. There are many con­cerns about banks, mort­gages and it’s all relat­ed. Democ­ra­cy depends on active, engaged cit­i­zen­ry and our democ­ra­cy is strong because peo­ple get involved.”

​“It can be done”

When pushed to answer why he could not enforce anoth­er mora­to­ri­um as he has done in the past, Dart appealed for more pres­sure — both from the com­mu­ni­ty and oth­er politi­cians — to make it possible.

​“I do not have a prob­lem stand­ing up to peo­ple. When I did [the mora­to­ri­um] the sec­ond time, I was told in no uncer­tain terms that I was expos­ing the coun­ty to legal issues. I would be hap­py to do a mora­to­ri­um for the third time but I need the sup­port. I feel like I have a lot of cred­i­bil­i­ty. But I can’t go in front of lawyers and say I will expose the coun­ty. The idea of a task­force is phe­nom­e­nal to gar­ner sup­port to get oth­er peo­ple togeth­er. We need to under­stand that it can be done.”

Fol­low­ing these respons­es, CAEC orga­niz­er Tou­s­saint Losier appealed to the crowd to take action into their own hands. ​“Sher­iff Dart has asked for our sup­port in get­ting what we want, how do you feel about that? It’s one thing to clap, it’s anoth­er thing to show, in num­bers, what we need in the coun­ty. What are you will­ing to do?”

So while nei­ther Dart nor Preck­win­kle would com­mit to mak­ing an evic­tion mora­to­ri­um an imme­di­ate real­i­ty, judg­ing by the response from the crowd, the demand was in no way sti­fled. In fact, CUAFE orga­niz­er Shar­lyn Grace made clear that the fight would con­tin­ue, stat­ing ​“this mora­to­ri­um will place the human right to hous­ing above the ​‘right’ of banks to make a prof­it off of emp­ty homes. If Sher­iff Dart does not grant the mora­to­ri­um, the peo­ple will enforce one themselves.”

The meet­ing was con­clud­ed by a call for direct action of the kind that has often been suc­cess­ful in keep­ing res­i­dents in their prop­er­ties — such as evic­tion block­ades, move-ins into unoc­cu­pied prop­er­ties, court­rooms occu­pa­tions and demon­stra­tions. ​“Come to a meet­ing, build the sup­port to show Tom Dart we are seri­ous,” implored Tay­lor. ​“Politi­cians have to work with­in real­is­tic frame­work. We as cit­i­zens don’t have to oper­ate with­in those lim­its. We have to build a move­ment to show them that we will do what is nec­es­sary to save hous­ing and pro­tect families.”