Action Location (rain or shine):
Chase Bank Branch, 2112 15th Street, San Francisco, CA 94114 (at Market Street)
What: Occupy Chase to Prevent Homelessness, Foreclosures, and Evictions with a soup kitchen, street theater, foreclosure and eviction fighters and other speakers
Who: So far, we’ve got bread donated from Arizmendi and Ryan and the Space Transformers folks are setting up a soup kitchen, Bob on transport, Lisa and David on signage, music including guitarists Francis Collins and Tommi Avicolli-Mecca.
Brought to you by Occupy Bernal, ACCE-SF, Occupy Direct Action Workgroup, Occupy Action Council of SF, Occupy SF Environmental Justice Workgroup, Community Not Commodity, Occupy Noe, San Francisco Tenants Union, Senior and Disability Action, Manilatown Heritage Foundation, Communities United in Defense of Olmsted, and others coming soon.
Ross Rhodes lives in the house he grew up in and is a lifelong resident of Bernal Heights. He heard about Occupy Bernal on a Monday, started working with Ed Donaldson with San Francisco Housing Development Corporation (SFHDC) on Wednesday, and by Thursday he was an active member of Occupy Bernal. He is an Occupy Bernal success story because he obtained a fair deal loan modification from Wells Fargo! Even after his success, he has continued to organize the struggle for fair deal loan modifications for Foreclosure and Eviction Fighters with Wells Fargo and other lenders.
Video of Ross Rhodes speaking at December 6, 2012, Occupy Our Homes Wells Fargo Bayview bank branch action:
On November 2, 2012, Foreclosure and Eviction Fighters from the Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment (ACCE), Occupy Bernal, and the Occupy the Auctions and Evictions Campaign, visited the office of Fannie Mae in San Francisco to demand the halt of the evictions of African-American senior Betty Davis and African-American, senior, disabled veteran Alfred Richardson.
The protestors made it to the front door of the 30th floor office of Fannie Mae at 50 California Street in San Francisco, but unfortunately no one answered the door when they rang and knocked. So, Betty Davis slid her statement and demands under the door and the participants tacked posters to the walls surrounding the Fannie Mae and other 30th floor offices, as well as the bathroom and elevators.
Supporters of Foreclosure and Eviction Fighter Larry Faulks gathered at the Wells Fargo headquarters in downtown San Francisco on October 30, 2012, to demand that Wells Fargo rescind the sale of the Faulks home to DMG Asset Management and offer Larry a fair deal loan modification. Larry and his brother are elderly and disabled and don’t deserve to be thrown to the curb after Wells Fargo illegally sold their home at auction while negotiating a loan modification with them (a practice called “dual tracking”). The group also voiced support for Bernetta Adolph of San Francisco, Jacqueline Barber of Georgia, and Ana Casas Wilson in Los Angeles, California, all of whom Wells Fargo is trying to evict.
The group presented more than five hundred signatures to a representative of the bank who accepted them on behalf of Wells Fargo Community Relations Director Brenda Wright and Wells Fargo CEO John Stumpf.
The action was organized by Occupy Noe, Occupy Bernal, and the Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment (ACCE) with participation from the Occupy Direct Action Workgroup (DAWG) and Community Not Commodity.
Supporters of Foreclosure and Eviction Fighter Larry Faulks gathered at the Wells Fargo branch in the Noe Valley neighborhood of San Francisco to demand that Wells Fargo rescind the sale of the Faulks home to DMG Asset Management and offer Larry a fair deal loan modification. Larry and his brother are elderly and disabled and don’t deserve to be thrown to the curb after Wells Fargo illegally sold their home at auction while negotiating a loan modification with them (a practice called “dual tracking”).
The group gathered hundreds of signatures to present to Wells Fargo Community Relations Director Brenda Wright and Wells Fargo CEO John Stumpf.
Susan McDonough of Occupy Noe explains the situation with Wells Fargo, DMG Asset Management, and the Faulks family. She invites supporters to join an action at an open house of Climb Real Estate, the company that flips the homes DMG Asset Management evicts families like the Faulks family from. The protest will take place 12:00pm to 3:00pm on Sunday, October 28, at 1272 Rhode Island Street on Potrero Hill in San Francisco.
Larry Faulks talks about his situation and expresses his thanks to supporters.
The action was organized by Occupy Noe, Occupy Bernal, and the Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment (ACCE) with participation from the Occupy Direct Action Workgroup (DAWG) and Community Not Commodity.
Dozens of protesters held a press conference at the former home of Kathy Galves at 12:00 noon on October 23, 2012, to tell the story of thousands of disabled elders and families that end up homeless when they lose their homes. Wells Fargo foreclosed on the home of Kathy Galves, then evicted her and her sister in December 2012. Since then, she has been staying with friends and paying out of her pension to stay at hotels. “I have nowhere else to go,” says Galves. Kathy, a disabled, African-American senior, needs a safe, secure, and affordable home.
Thousands of elders and families have lots their homes to foreclosure here in San Francisco and they often end up homeless staying in motels, their cars, shelters, and even sometimes on the streets. Many of the foreclosures happen when someone in the family becomes ill and the family can no longer afford skyrocketing medical bills.
The event also highlighted the plight of 82-year-old Dr. Lehmann Brightmann, a Native American scholar and educator who is in the hospital while his family teeters on the edge of foreclosure and 80-year-old Fred Wahpepah, a Native American medicine-giver who needs financial assistance to prevent his home from going into foreclosure after his wife became ill and could no longer work.
The event was co-sponsored by POOR Magazine / Prensa POBRE, The Manilatown Heritage Foundation, The Idriss Stelley Foundation, and the San Francisco Bay View newspaper, with speakers from some of those organizations, as well as the Housing Rights Committee of San Francisco, the Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment (ACCE), Occupy Bernal, and the Occupy the Auctions and Evictions Campaign.
Brother Robles of Poor Magazine and Manilatown Heritage Foundation speaks.
“Tiny” aka Lisa Gray-Garcia of POOR Magazine speaks.
Kathy Galves speaks.
Son of Dr. Lehmann Brightmann speaks.
Son of Dr. Lehmann Brightmann continues.
Tommi Avicolli-Mecca of Housing Rights Committee of San Francisco speaks.
Tommi Avicolli-Mecca of Housing Rights Committee of San Francisco continues.
Fred Wahpepah speaks.
Devina Estrella O Jai speaks.
Ross Rhodes of the Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment (ACCE), Occupy Bernal, and Occupy Noe speaks.
Foreclosure and Evictions Fighters and their supporters from Occupy Noe, Occupy Bernal, and the Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment (ACCE) gathered at the home of DMG Assets Principal Angela Woo Lee at 370 San Benito Way, St Francis Wood
Neighborhood, San Francisco, yesterday to ask her to stop the eviction of the Faulks family. Protestors took their message to the neighbors, many of whom said they would respond to the action alert on this case by calling and emailing DMG Assets.
Larry Faulks and his brother — both disabled — as well as their renter want to stay in the home their parents purchased in 1962. Wells Fargo sold their house at foreclosure auction without their knowledge. They have the funds to make payments on a fair deal loan modification. DMG plans to evict them on Wednesday, October 10.
Occupiers occupied the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts’ “Occupy Bay Area” art exhibit on October 2, 2012, setting up a foreclosure “nightmare house” and acting as Occupy docents to attendees at the exhibit from all over the world.
The event was part of a campaign called Occupy the Dream House intended to point out the societal plight of arts organizations who resort to raffling off a “dream house” to raise money from people, most of whom probably wouldn’t be able to pay the property taxes on the $4.1 million dollar luxury home even if they won it. Occupy the Dream House organizers want to point out the contradictions in appealing to people’s greed and gambling dreams while Occupy Foreclosure and Evictions Fighters and millions of other Californians are struggling through nightmares to remain in their homes.
Meanwhile, Oracle staged an event in the Yerba Buena gardens, blocking off public access to the entire area, similar to the recent Salesforce event that blocked off the entire Civic Center Plaza to the public for a few days. How is it that corporations can cordon off the commons for their own private use? Shouldn’t the public be welcome to any corporate-sponsored events in public venues?
At 9:00am on October 2, 2012, Foreclosure and Eviction Fighters and supporters from the Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment (ACCE), Occupy Bernal, and Occupy Noe showed up at the JP Morgan Chase bank branch at Mission Street and 21st Street in San Francisco prepared to protest and occupy the branch. Happily, Chase had postponed Foreclosure and Eviction Fighter Ian Haddow’s foreclosure auction scheduled for later that day at City Hall due to his filing of a loan modification application and our calls and emails supporting him in obtaining a fair deal loan modification from Chase. Instead of entering the bank branch to protest, we went in to thank Chase for postponing the auction and to ask for the loan modification for Ian and several other Foreclosure and Eviction Fighters who have similar cases with Chase. We didn’t have to go to City Hall later in the day to protest the foreclosure auction. Thanks to everyone who organized the action and called and emailed Chase on Ian’s behalf… we’ll probably still need more of those to obtain a loan modification for Ian.
Foreclosure and Eviction Fighters (FEFs) and supporters from Occupy Bernal, Occupy Noe, Occupy Direct Action Workgroup, and ACCE occupied One Market Plaza in San Francisco where the offices of the Fortress Investment Group (FIG) are located. The protestors demanded that Fortress Investment Group stop evictions and foreclosures of FEFs in San Francisco and beyond. Fortress Investment Group owns 77% of Nationstar Mortgage Holdings, the corporate entity actually engaging in the foreclosure activity. FIG Co-Chair Peter Briger has called for a strategy of financial “garbage collection”, so protestors dressed up in garbage bag and chanted: “Fortress: We’re Not Garbage, Nationstar: Stop the Evictions!”, “Nationstar, You’ve Gone to Far; Stop the Evictions!”, and “Share the bailouts to save our homes and schools!”
What: Occupy Chase to Prevent Homelessness, Foreclosures, and Evictions with a soup kitchen, street theater, foreclosure and eviction fighters and other speakers
