Evicted homeowner slams House Committee at hearing

Written by Biloxi

On Wednesday, the House Judiciary Committee, chaired by Rep. Hank Johnson (D-GA) held a hearing on the causes and effects of the mortgage foreclosure crisis as well as foreclosure practices by mortgages servicers. The Committee heard from consumer advocates as well as an attorney involved in foreclosure cases. But, there was another witness to testify to the Committee: A former homeowner who lost her family home in Detroit, Michigan by foreclosure. And this woman's testimony was a very compelling.
 
Her name is Sandra Hines. Ms. Hines' testimony certainly got my attention. And without notes for her testimony, Ms. Hines let the Committee have it and called them. Here are some of the excerpts of her testimony in which I wrote down in which she blasted the Committee:

“Why should people have to come here and tell you this when you see millions and millions of people in foreclosure….Don’t you want to do something about it….All of you got a home, you got money, you have health care, you’ve got the best insurance anyone can have….the bottom line, don’t just listen, do something about it.”

Here is the entire hearing on video. Click here. Ms. Hines' testimony starts at 38:04. I was very curious and wanted to find out more about Ms. Hines. So, I decided to do some research about her lost of her family home. Here is the story of how Ms. Hines was a victim of foreclosure. Seth Freed Wessler, reporter for Colorlines.com,
did a piece on Ms. Hines's foreclosure loss in July of this year. Here is Ms. Hines' story:

In the summer of 2007, the Hines family took out an adjustable rate refinance loan from H&R Block in order to do some repairs on the house. When their monthly payment began climbing after just three months, they couldn't keep up with payments. As they rapidly went into default in their home, they were evicted from their home of 38 years just days before Christmas. Ms. Hines described how her two sisters, niece, and she watched the bailiffs throw out their belongings and padlock the doors on their home. It's no secret that the state of Michigan is number one in U.S. home foreclosures. Michigan’s foreclosure rate is driven faster because of the unemployment rate. Last month, Michigan's jobless rate was 12.8 percent which is the second highest in the country behind Nevada.

Currently, Ms. Sandra Hines is an active vocal member of Detroit-based organization Moratorium Now, an organization that fights to keep people in their homes and to implement moratoriums on foreclosures and evictions on the state level. ColorLines.com's Seth Freed Wessler profiled Sandra Hines during the 2010 US Social Forum where both Wessler and Hines visited her old neighborhood to discuss the effectiveness of racial predatory lending. Here is the video, Click here.

Sandra Hines is the first homeowner to testify to the House Committee to provide her story as well as frustrations to why the banks are not held accountable for their actions for this foreclosure mistakes as well as fraud. Ms. Hines’s testimony represented the frustrations of many distressful homeowners. Ms. Hines’ story needed to be heard. We certainly need more Sandra Hines in this country to testify in front of the House committees as well as Senate committees because American people are losing the American dream of homeownership while the banks are stealing the American dream. As Ms. Hines so poignantly said to the House Committee," Don't just listen, do something about it." The question is: Will they?