Rep. Keith Ellison calls for federal housing director's firing while protesting homeowner's eviction
Rep. Keith Ellison (D-MN) slammed the acting Federal Housing Finance Agency director Ed DeMarco during a rally on Tuesday supporting a Minneapolis homeowner in her fight against the foreclosure of her home.
"We need to be finding ways to keep people in their homes, not kicking them out," Ellison said, according to Occupy Homes Minnesota, which took part in the protest. "Ed DeMarco has consistently refused to write down these loans to make them affordable. Other members of Congress and I have taken the extreme but reasonable step of calling for him to be fired. Big banks need to change the way they’re doing business in our communities. Enough is enough."
The protest was held in conjunction with a settlement court hearing involving local homeowner Rose McGee and housing giant Fannie Mae and another mortgage company, Citimortgage.
KARE-TV reported that McGee and her supporters have accused the company of using a tactic called "dual tracking" to attempt to evict her while allegedly negotiating a loan modification.
The hearing ended without a settlement being reached. An attorney for the two firms told the station he believed McGee "wanted to live in her house for free." Her lawyer, Jonathan Drewes, said in court that the two firms did not provide her with the proper paperwork during their negotiation.
Besides the rally on behalf of McGee, demonstrators also delivered a petition with 2,600 signatures to the U.S. Attorney's office for Minnesota, the Minneapolis Star-Tribune reported. Similar petitions were taken to other offices in Arkansas, California, Georgia, Missouri, North Carolina and Pennsylvania.
The rally was organized by New Bottom Line, a homeowners advocacy group that also protested DeMarco's testimony during a March 19, 2013 meeting of the House Committee on Housing Finance.
Watch KARE's report on the rally in support of McGee, aired Tuesday, below.