On behalf of the hundreds of homeowners who continue to lose their homes to the foreclosure crisis in Delaware, the Delaware Community Reinvestment Action Council, Inc. vehemently opposes the $700 billion bailout bill proposed by the Bush administration, unless it first addresses the foreclosure crisis affecting millions of Americans.
“Please do not consider returning to Delaware until you get the business of Delawareans taken care of,” says Rashmi Rangan, executive director of DCRAC to Delaware’s congressmen in Washington in a press release. The $700 billion proposal is the latest and most expensive in a series of financial system liquidity interventions that fail to address the core problem undermining the financial system and destabilizing the economy. Declining assets in the form of foreclosures are dragging down the economy, and continued lopsided attempts to provide liquidity to financial institutions will not resolve the issue.
“The foreclosure crisis is the problem,” said DCRAC Chairman Domenic Pedante. “The answer seems to be adding layers of brick to heighten the levee when the foundation has cracks. When the tide comes in, the levee will break.”
The Board of Directors of the National Community Reinvestment Coalition (NCRC) met with Chairman Ben Bernanke, Vice chairman Donald Kohn, Governors Randall Krozner and Elizabeth Duke Sept. 22 at the Federal Reserve in Washington DC.
Rangan, also an NCRC Board member, is concerned that Depression-era solutions are being considered 80 years later, when the world has changed.
“What the bailout will do is likely make a home in Wilmington very attractive to a buyer abroad,” she said. “Our landlords could well reside in a nation half the world away.”
“Assisting homeowners to stay in their homes would have been a more effective and equitable way to prevent the collapse of financial institutions and seizure of the credit markets,” said National Community reinvestment Coalition President & CEO John Taylor. “In addition to keeping the economy strong, doing so would have allowed millions of working families to maintain their homes.”
The Delaware Community Reinvestment Action Council is a tax exempt, charitable nonprofit whose mission is to ensure equal access to credit and capital for the underserved populations and communities throughout Delaware through education, outreach, advocacy, and legislation. Founded in 1987, DCRAC was awarded the Standards for Excellence Seal of Excellence in 2007, a recognition that it is among the most well managed, responsibly governed organizations.
