On September 30, three thousand people came together to Take Back Boston. Led by families facing foreclosure, our march weaved through downtown Boston, passing the Hyatt, Verizon, Fidelity and ending up at the Bank of America Massachusetts headquarters to confront the nation’s largest lender for their role in the economic crisis. 24 of our brothers and sisters were arrested as they stood up for themselves, their families, their friends and their neighbors facing foreclosure.
Friday’s rally was a powerful demonstration of what we can do when we come together to make our voices heard. Press from around New England and across the country featured stories about our march and talked about the growing movement to fight back against corporate greed.
On Saturday, we took our message into the neighborhood. The Four Corners area of Dorchester has been ravaged by foreclosures. We took over a wrongly foreclosed home, hoping to return it from the hands of Deutsche Bank to its rightful owners—a family that was evicted and has left the area. The action team cleaned the home, brought in donated furniture, and hung art on the walls and a banner off the porch. Hundreds toured the house and cheered from the street, while music played and children danced.
The power and the momentum of this past weekend’s events was the product of a wide coalition of organizations, including the Right to the City Alliance and City Life/Vida Urbana. But the movement doesn’t stop there.
I get the distinct impression that there seems to be little or no interest in effectively trying to solve this problem, which for starters might be to ascertain whether a variable interest rate had anything to do with the eviction to begin with, or, more importantly, whether or not this house is presently being occupied by owners or renters who are paying less than a third of what block census data for this neighborhood says is the average annual income for people in this neighborhood. I get sick of hot air very quickly and I’ve been seeing and hearing too much of that lately.
The corporations are taking away everything. They need to set up a fund that will help the regular man. Each man and woman should be entitled to a monthly stipend funded by the fortune 500 fatcats!