Macalester Kick Wells Fargo Off Campus - KWOC

"U.S. Bancorp is paying $200 million to resolve claims by the federal government that shoddy underwriting of home loans insured by the Federal Housing Administration violated federal law...the U.S. Department of Justice blamed the Minneapolis-based lender for contributing to the nation’s costly housing collapse and epidemic of foreclosures."

http://www.startribune.com/business/265265891.html .97

"The total value of America’s owner-occupied housing remains $3.2 trillion below 2006 levels. According to Zillow, a real estate database, 9.8 million households still owe more on their mortgages than the market value of their homes. That’s one-fifth of all mortgaged homes...Dealing with this problem on a city-by-city basis may not be the most efficient way to confront a national crisis, but in the face of Wall Street intransigence and federal indifference, cities have had to find their own way to restore the lost wealth of their constituents."

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/09/opinion/what-housing-recovery.html?ref=opinion&_r=1

What Housing Recovery? A lot of Americans are still underwater, but the problem is solvable.

"The study, using data from 2009 to 2012...notes that Wells Fargo & Co. and U.S. Bank, the two largest banks in Minnesota, would have made an additional 4,200 and 1,200 mortgage loans, respectively, in racially diverse and mostly nonwhite Twin Cities neighborhoods during that period if they had distributed their loans proportionally to the distribution of homeowners with various incomes across the region."

http://www.startribune.com/business/254464331.html

U of M study sees signs of mortgage redlining in Twin Cities Minority residents in the Twin Cities are much more likely than white people of similar incomes to be rejected for a mortgage, whether they’re buying a home or refinancing

Macalester Kick Wells Fargo Off Campus - KWOC was proud to join United Students Against Sweatshops in Austin, Texas for their national conference and stand with campus workers fighting against privatization.

KWOC has had a good week - we were thrilled to host the Midwest Housing Justice Academy on Mac's campus, and display the art of the talented Jordan Booker. Mac students also hung on Jessica English and Antoine Martinneau's every word when they spoke on campus about their experience with vacant reclamation. Finally, we need to offer a HUGE CONGRATULATIONS to our friend Ann Haines, who celebrated winning her home this weekend!!

"Wells Fargo has found a way to spin its history of racist and predatory lending into public relations gold:"

When KWOC students met with Wells Fargo representatives last year, they boasted about their "commitment" to working class people of color via a slideshow about the "CityLIFT Program."

This article explains how that entire program, which does not even begin to repair the devastation they caused in the foreclosure crisis, was actually part of a lawsuit in which they were FORCED to spend $50 million on "helping low-income and minority homebuyers purchase homes in regions that the bank had previously barraged with toxic loans."

Wells Fargo’s Makeover | Jacobin Wells Fargo’s Makeover11.5.13by Avi Asher-SchapiroWells Fargo has found a way to spin its history of racist and predatory lending into public relations gold.Flickr // SEIU InternationalIn October 2012, HSBC executive Irene Dorner addressed a crowd of 600 bankers, financial executives, and lobbyists…

KWOC-ers meeting on Halloween night. Wouldn't it be a wonderful treat if Macalester College stood with the community and cut its contract with Wells Fargo!

That's right - KWOC is going statewide! Join students from across the state at Macalester this Sunday October 20th as we continue to build our collective power and fight to hold big banks accountable. All students are welcome!

For more information and to RSVP please visit https://www.facebook.com/events/489115107863164/?ref=br_tf

http://www.occupyhomesmn.org/banksbootcamp

Macalester Students to Hold Statewide Convergence to Beat the Banks After a summer building power, the Macalester Kick Wells Fargo Off Campus students are taking their campaign statewide.

After speaking about student organizing and fighting Wall Street greed at Carleton College, KWOC students headed to the United Students Against Sweatshops Midwest Convergence in Chicago. What a wonderful week of learning and collaborating with other students fighting for student-worker solidarity and housing justice!

About 44 percent of the $2.5 billion that banks sent to state governments as part of a 2012 legal settlement over “robosigning” foreclosure abuses has been redirected to rainy day funds, budget balancing efforts, and economic development funds rather than spent on helping distressed homeowners wronged by the banks.

http://www.pewstates.org/projects/stateline/headlines/states-used-mortgage-settlement-money-to-balance-budgets-85899510308

Settlement with mortgage lenders funds state budgets, pet projects - Stateline Billions of dollars went to help borrowers keep their homes, but not all states spent their share of the national mortgage settlement on housing programs.

Just 18 months after the National Mortgage Settlement, Wells Fargo is back in court once again after it continued to delay loan modifications for homeowners. New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman explained that the bank, “refused to acknowledge there’s a problem." After the settlement ignored the 250,000 wrongful foreclosures, we hope this next round will actually put pressure on Wells Fargo to fix what it broke.

http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2013/10/03/2724671/mortgage-settlement-wells-fargo/

Wells Fargo Dragged Back To Court, Exposing Failures Of Mortgage Settlement Regulators and attorneys general are scrambling to salvage the mortgage settlement.