Lawyers for the Poor Muzzled in Subprime Mess
Commentary
Laura K. Abel, Deputy Director at the Brennan Center for Justice, writes in TheNation.com: "In the next two years, 2 million families who took out subprime loans will face losing those homes to foreclosure. Their families will suffer, neighborhoods will be devastated and local governments will lose significant tax revenue. Economists trace the problems back to careless and sometimes fraudulent mortgage lending practices. Some lenders coaxed first-time low-income home-buyers to take out mortgages, or long-time homeowners to take out second mortgages, without disclosing the high monthly rates they eventually would have to pay. Not surprisingly, the homeowners cannot afford the monthly payments, and when they fall too far behind foreclosure proceedings start. Now policy-makers are asking how we could have allowed such as widespread financial disaster to occur. They point to lax federal and state regulators, irresponsible mortgage companies and a financial sector too reliant on the housing bubble to examine the mortgages in which it invests. There's another cause, though, which is largely ignored: restrictions that have prevented federally funded civil legal aid lawyers from fully addressing the problem from its inception."
To read the full article, click here.