Well folks: It's a week later, Tuesday December 27th, and we are actively searching for an investor or philanthropist to help us tender an offer to the foreclosing bank in order to save the farm. We have not raised much money yet, we are getting some calls each day, but things are progressing slowly, it's just after Christmas, and I am not expecting help this week. I really want to help others, I know there are over 400 homes sitting empty or in some stage of foreclosure in Gypsum and Eagle, Colorado, and it's worse on the Front Range and the Western Slope. The problem is these lenders simply do not want to do their due diligence, they just want to rush through foreclosures (because they can) and get these homes back up for sale as quickly as possible. It does not matter that there's families involved who will have lost their life's investment, it does not matter that there's real people to deal with. All that matters is a loan number, a closed file and clean paper. Today I filled out paperwork for the Federal Loan Review survey that was sent to me in the mail. I guess this is supposed to make me feel better and give me a sense of hope. But I have no hope, I'm simply too emotionally drained and too exhausted to really feel hope anymore. Even if I were, by some miracle, to be able to save my beloved farm, I don't think I will ever be the same again. As I look forward next week to more of the same, I wonder why anyone would ever want to buy a house again or take out a mortgage again after having everything taken from them.
Our friends from Colorado Springs came to visit us during Christmas, they have spent a year trying to recover after losing their home in Eagle County last year, having put over $200,000 into a new home and fixing it up, then losing it after losing jobs (both of them laid off or lost work and unable to get reemployed). They spent a year living in a tiny apartment after losing all their savings and assets trying to save their home. They spent a year trying to figure out what to do next. They had a friend who spent seven months living out of her car after losing her home to foreclosure. Where is this going to end? With the entire middle class unemployed, stripped of their life's savings, living out of cars and one bedroom apartments while thousands of homes sit empty, or worse, taken over by banks and bulldozed down because the lender does not want to pay the property taxes and maintain the homes they stole? Why is our government doing NOTHING to stop this robbery????
Today I read about the Attorney's General in the ongoing settlement with the lenders. Every day we keep hearing that the settlement is "almost there", any day now, and today, I read that the actual settlement talks have some agreement for 19-20 billion to be divided up for different aspects of the mortgage fraud perpetrated by the lenders. For instance, some of the money will be used to compensate homeowners who were illegally foreclosed on. The amount? Approximately $1500 per borrower. That's just great. Kick people out of their homes for no reason, and they get $1500 for their loss. Want some more? the rest of the money goes to foreclosure mitigation, prevention and loan modification non-profits to assist those who are in foreclosure (not those who already lost their homes). And the best of all? The lenders will not be held accountable for their crimes. Not one. Sounds like the AG's are really looking out for borrowers best interests. If this makes you angry, complain to your AG. Send them a complaint letter, demand that the lenders be held accountable for their fraud. You all know that if you and I pulled this kind of stunt, in any kind of contract, we would be in jail for what we did, no questions asked. Yet, these lenders get to walk away scott free with not even a slap on the wrist. It's beyond amazing that these banks can cheat, lie, extort, commit fraud, steal homes, change paperwork to fit the situation to allow them to foreclose, and nobody seems to think this is a bad thing. Everybody just wants to go along and ignore and look the other way while lenders run roughshod over working people. It has got to stop. We have to stop it. If you want to learn how, and you want to be a voice, get on the Internet and start blogging, start writing letters to the Attorney General in your State, your Senators, and your Congressmen and women. Find investors and people willing to donate time and money to organizations that will change our laws to protect the consumer, but most of all GET INVOLVED. Things don't change by themselves, they change because people want things changed. In order for that to happen, you have to commit to change. I'm hoping everything I write as I journey down this road is read by someone who makes the decision to help by becoming a voice for change. And somehow, someway, the American people can take back what was lost, take back their heritage, get back their courage and integrity, and start fighting for freedom again. In a hundred years, we have managed to become slaves again, this time to the God of Finance. Our lives are ruled by money, instead of family values. It's easy for the lenders to have family values, they go home to paid for homes, astronomical salaries and bonuses, and they are so insulated from what is really going on in the world, why should they feel any different about the working people? It was okay for them to cut up our mortgages and gamble them on the stock market, and it was okay to lose the gamble and get paid off by the federal government with TARP funds. Now, its still okay for them to get more money and property by foreclosing on properties they no longer show on their balance sheets, and reaping in extra profits while struggling homeowners foot the bill. When the TARP funds were given to the lenders, loan modifications and write-downs should have been automatic, sweeping, and significant. If that had happened at the time in 2008, our economy would have recovered and rebounded. Instead, inaction by our federal government, lenders and investors resulted in more bank failures and huge failures in business in every industry in our nation, including a large portion of small businesses who went under because of a domino effect from larger corporate layoffs and stagnating economic flows. I don't think anyone could have predicted such a dire outcome, but the fact is it could have been averted, and nobody in Congress had the balls to step forward and demand action. Maybe we need new people, younger people, more talented people running our government. In the meantime, our farm and our family needs your prayers and support. I'll talk again soon. Donna
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