Some community activists could face criminal charges after breaking into a home in Southeast Baltimore.
Police were at the home Thursday night looking for fingerprints and other evidence.
The activists who staged the break-in belong to the Association of Community Organizations For Reform Now or ACORN. After snapping a lock with bolt cutters, ACORN member Louis Beverly told supporters "this is our house now."
ACORN staged the demonstration to protest the foreclosure crisis sweeping the nation. The home in the 300 block of Ellwood Avenue used to be owned by Donna Hanks. She lost this home in September, after owning it since 2001. When things got tough she struggled to make her payments.
Her mortgage? $1995 a month. Her income? $2200.
So the mortgage payment was 91% of her monthly income? Boy howdy, no reason at all why she got foreclosed, huh ...
Donna's story is one that ACORN is taking a stand against. "We feel that it was unjust, we feel as though she was strong armed robbed, we feel that Wells Fargo could have modified her loan and that is what we are asking for right now," says Beverly.
Acorn chapters across the country are staging similar scenes to drive their point home. They want state governments to enact moratoriums on foreclosures until this crisis can be worked out. ACORN says that they will move Donna Hanks back in despite the fact that she no longer owns the house.
During the taping of this story a man by the name of William Lane told ABC2 News that he owns the house currently--and plans to sue Acorn. |