Benchmark Institute is a training and performance development
organization dedicated to increasing the quality and quantity of
legal services to low-income communities.
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May 2009
May 1, 2009 —
Steve
Meacham: Fighting Foreclosure
Put this article in the must-watch or must read category. Bill
Moyers Journal profiles Steve Meacham, a Boston-based organizer who
works for City Life/Vida Urbana, a group that's pioneered new strategies
to help working people hold on to their homes in the face of intense
pressure from banks. The group combines The Shield, the legal
defense, and The Sword, a public relations, public protest offense, plus
a legislative strategy.
Meacham also addresses the arguments that people were greedy in buying
homes and moral hazard as the reason why banks can't resell property to
existing homeowners at its real value. He talks about the morality
of banks evicting people for no reason causing untold suffering because
they don’t want to be landlords. And how bringing the moral lens
and working together helps people fight eviction or losing their homes.
“But if empathy is somehow the quintessential human emotion, the
quintessential thing that makes us human, then solidarity is its
expression.”
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