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Congresswoman Waters and the “Wall Street Reform Bill”
Posted on December 22, 2009
Recently, Congresswoman Maxine Waters went to bat for unemployed and minority homeowners, making sure key provisions to help families were included in the Obama Administration’s “Wall Street Reform Bill.”
Waters made sure that $3 billion in low-interest loans for unemployed homeowners facing foreclosure and $1 billion to help communities hit hard by foreclosures buy and renovate abandoned properties were included in the bill.
This is a great step to help families in Los Angeles and around the country that are facing foreclosure. Part of the LA Times article is detailed below or you can read the full article here (LINK).
If you are facing foreclosure, our website has a number of resources for you to use. You can send us an email or call the help line and our partners at Los Angeles Network Housing Services will help you directly. Or, you can look at our California resources page to get the contact information of a counseling center in your community or county. Finally, http://www.HopeNow.come has a great list of federal resources to help you.
Reporting from Washington - With her party firmly in power, Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Los Angeles) didn’t think enough attention was being paid to the economic troubles of minorities. So she did what she’s often done during her long political career: She got in her colleagues’ faces.
Waters recently led a boycott by black lawmakers of a House committee vote on a Wall Street regulatory overhaul bill—a priority of President Obama’s.
“They got the message,” Waters said.
The bill, approved by the House on Friday with Waters’ support, included a number of measures she had sought: $3 billion in low-interest loans for unemployed homeowners facing foreclosure, $1 billion to help communities hit hard by foreclosures buy and renovate abandoned properties, and a provision to create an “office of minority and women inclusion” at the Treasury Department and other federal agencies.
The $1 billion to fix up foreclosed homes comes on top of $6 billion already approved in legislation championed by Waters—who said that the spending would create jobs. Republicans have attacked the spending as a bailout for lenders and speculators.
Waters has been among the most outspoken members of the Congressional Black Caucus in pressing the Obama administration and Democratic leaders to do more about the nearly 16% unemployment rate among African Americans.
“Since last September, we have continuously voted for bailouts and reform for the very institutions that created this devastation without properly protecting the African American and minority communities or small businesses,” she said recently, adding: “That stops today.”
On Friday, Waters, who chairs the House Financial Services Subcommittee on Housing and Community Opportunity, joined party leaders at a Capitol Hill news conference to celebrate the bill’s passage.
“If she is for you, you don’t mind facing a formidable army,” Rep. Emanuel Cleaver II (D-Mo.), a fellow black caucus member, said of Waters on Friday. “If she is against you, she is the army.”
