Appleseed Humanity

As the melodramatic, stage-managed bun fight that is the debate over the debt limit continues in Congress the full horror of the cuts proposed by some members as a solution is causing concern among people who serve those at risk.

Among the cuts proposed by conservative members is a significant reduction in the funding for ‘WIC’ – a nutritional program for women, infants and children. And the cuts would be inflicted while tax breaks for billionaires and oil companies remain blocked as ‘unfair.’

For years both parties had followed an unspoken tradition to always fund WIC, but early this year the GOP-led House passed a funding bill that would slash $733-million from the program.

If it ever becomes law 300-450,000 women and children would instantly go hungry.

To propose slashing funds for programs like WIC while insisting that tax breaks for billionaires and oil companies are preserved for the good of the nation is not only blatant pandering to those who fund both their lifestyle and election campaigns it’s also unsupported by facts:

Economists say every $1 invested in feeding a pregnant woman through WIC saves up to $2.13 in health care costs over the life of her child. At the same time, just one week of the revenue lost from the tax breaks would fund WIC in full for a year – With a profit.

44.5-million Americans now live beneath the poverty line. One in three are so poor they can’t eat every day. And to propose cutting funds to programs that help those with so little while preserving vote-gaining perks for those with more than enough is callous, deceptive, self-serving malfeasance.

The election cycle is almost upon us. Next time you hear a politician tell you they love this country and truly care about the people, find out where they stand on the funding for WIC.

You might not care about them quite so much when you know.

Source: Half-in-Ten

[Appleseed] – In a move that will give almost 2-million people a better chance to survive, Bank of America has just announced it is halting all foreclosures and sales of foreclosed homes, effective immediately.

Lawmakers and state officials had been calling for such a move for some time. But for a bank to suspend proceedings is significant and almost certainly unprecedented. And there’s even more good news;

“I expect to see every other responsible banking institution follow their lead,” Representative Edolphus Towns, Chairman of the ‘House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform,’ told the Times.

Last week the bank halted foreclosure proceedings in 23 states where evictions required court approval, following leaks about its use of questionably self-serving paperwork rightly created a storm of bad press.

They now say they are ‘reassessing’ the forms and that foreclosures will resume when the review is completed. Which the bank’s chief executive, Brian T. Moynihan says could be “a matter of a few weeks.”

JP-Morgan Chase, GMAC Mortgage and PNC Financial have also stalled their foreclosures – but sadly not from any twinge of compassion, simply that they too got caught using the same kinds of unfair paperwork.

Half-a-dozen state attorneys general are now investigating their acts, which are also the focus of a federal investigation. And that is almost certainly the real reason why the banks have announced this reprieve.

Bank of America currently has mortgages on 14-million homes. About 2-million are past due or already in foreclosure proceedings. This moratorium therefore gives 2-million families the chance to catch up on their payments, or at least find another way of escaping the streets on which B-of-A have placed so many others.

And some analysts say the bank’s decision may even come back to haunt them;

“The impact could be a decline in house prices,” Anthony Sanders, a professor of real estate finance at George Mason University told the reporters. “Halting foreclosure sales limits the inventory coming back on the market, and uncertainty about future prices usually results in a decline.”

But any such downside is self-inflicted. If they’d treated people fairly and used legal forms and procedures this interlude wouldn’t be needed.

But more importantly, almost two-million families now have more time to get their lives straight. And anything that helps them avoid the wrath of the banks and the chill of the streets is okay with me…

[Appleseed Humanity] – A recent report by Realty Trac shows that a record 2.8-million homes faced foreclosure last year. This year that number is expected to top 3-million. And the mainstream media’s reaction to this almost unprecedented calamity is nothing short of chilling.

In one article produced this week by that usually well-moderated purveyor of news, the New York Times they reported that banks and other home lenders have been cutting corners so they could reduce the workload required to put people on the streets.

Lately, however, some lenders have become concerned that the huge numbers of vacant houses created by this reprehensible eagerness to evict rather than undo the problem might damage the profits accrued from the homes they have left.

So after placing thousands of people on the streets for debts they didn’t deliberately cause and couldn’t repair the lenders have decided to find ways to collect future mortgage arrears, instead of simply evicting the borrowers.

And how does the Times describe the greed-fueled purge of inculpable victims that has been the norm up to now?

A ‘misstep.’

Thousands of people – and in most cases their children – had their homes repossessed and lives immeasurably damaged so the banks could post stronger profits for their shareholders, and the New York Times excuses and supports them by utilizing a noun that makes this callous act of cold-blooded greed sound like a victim-less and utterly trivial error.

The lenders destroyed lives simply to protect profits, and were only coerced into ending this repellent behavior by the very same motive. They should be deeply and enduringly ashamed of their acts, and the New York Times shares in that shame for so clearly proving they consider the lenders’ behavior to be both perfectly innocent and entirely excusable.

At the last official count the city of Baltimore, MD had 3,419 homeless people – an increase of 417 since the last census in 2007. Now a voucher program that gave some the priceless gift of a roof has been closed to new applicants because the funding has dried up.

Having been on the streets for more than a year roughly 30% of the city’s homeless are defined as ‘Chronically homeless.’ Some also have drug and mental health problems, And these are the very people the plan was created to reach.

But federal funds for the plan, which already gave almost 400 people a new chance in life have ended. All those on the waiting list, as well as new applicants must therefore be refused.

So now they have nothing.

The brain-child of former Mayor, Sheila Dixon the p1an was meant to provide at least 500 homes over ten years and also called for legislation that made it illegal for landlords to refuse any tenant who received a government subsidy.

Ms. Dixon called it “A blueprint for a society where homelessness no longer exists.”

But the new laws died in committee and Housing Commissioner Paul T. Graziano says he has no idea where new funds will come from. Or when.

“We’re assisting more households than we ever have. We’re maxed out,” he tells the Baltimore Sun.

The housing authority failed to secure a $10-million grant, but did get extra money to help 75 homeless veterans and two hundred families that have one member with some form of disability. And while laudable and helpful, this is not even close to enough.

But the most telling review of this latest shame comes from James McKay, an outreach advocate with ‘Baltimore Healthcare Homeless Access.’ which helps – or at least helped – people get vouchers.

“Everyone deserves affordable housing,” he told the Sun. “Everyone deserves to be treated like a human being.”

I couldn’t agree more if I tried. News like this is intensely annoying – especially when we could finance this whole program for under $1-million. But no-one will help.

Studies prove the chronically homeless face a far higher risk of dying and suffering health problems, so what do we need to do to make people care enough to actually stop this – Stack all the bodies on Capitol Hill?…