For Immediate Release:
Contact Rashida Restaino at
(773) 256-2718, (773) 791-0014
rrestainto@rainbowpush.org
Maceo Williams
(404) 525-5663
maceowilliams@yahoo.com

 HIGH FORECLOSURE RATES IN GEORGIA SPUR ACTION

The first Tuesday in every month brings growing sadness to Georgia homeowners.  Today, we gather to offer encouragement.  We want to:

1.       Encourage homeowners and let them know that help is available.  Fannie Mae, Neighborworks, CCCS, Rainbow PUSH Coalition and others have formed a partnership to offer counseling and real help.  Those facing foreclosure should contact the hotline at 1-888-995 – HOPE.

2.      Encourage the banking industry to be flexible, responsive and creative in finding solutions for individual homeowners

3.      Encourage regulators, including the U.S. Congress and the Federal Reserve Bank, to balance competing interests wisely.  Consumers did not create the exotic mortgage products that led to speculation in the housing market – and they should not bear the brunt of the fallout alone.  Counseling alone may not be sufficient to bail out homeowners who land in foreclosure through no fault of their own. 

4.      Encourage consumers to pay attention to the foreclosure crisis, whether it affects them directly or not.  The effect of the mortgage crisis will eventually affect all consumers – in tighter credit, lowered property values, lowered sales of all goods and service  and pressure on state and local government budgets.  We encourage the public to do business with those banks that work constructively to assist homeowners.  We intend to publish the names of banks that do a good job in assisting homeowners in crisis.

One out of every 165 Georgia households is in foreclosure.  Georgia ranked fourth in the nation in foreclosure.  The report shows Georgia's foreclosure rate jumped 10.6 percent from July and was up 133.5 percent compared with August 2006.  Only Nevada, California and Florida had worse foreclosure statistics. ^[1] In July 10,000 Georgia households were facing foreclosure

The United States had a total of 243,947 foreclosure filings in August, up 36 percent from July and up 115 percent from August 2006. This is the highest number of foreclosure filings in a single month that RealtyTrac has reported since it began issuing its monthly report in January 2005. The national foreclosure rate of one foreclosure filing for every 510 households for the month is also the highest figure ever issued in the report.

The Rainbow PUSH Coalition is a progressive organization protecting, defending and expanding civil rights to improve economic and educational opportunity. The organization is headquartered at 930 E. 50th St. in Chicago. To learn more about the RainbowPUSH Coalition, please visit www.rainbowpush.org, or telephone (773) 373-3366.

[1] According to RealtyTrac's August 2007 U.S. Foreclosure Market Report.