When Dixie Mitchell faced foreclosure on her 21st Ave home of 45 years, she fought back. She wasn’t looking to get out of her loan, she just wanted the chance to pay it back after the banks bundled and resold the loan several times, sending her interest rate through the roof. In the meantime, her husband had a stroke and was unable to work, and Dixie, a cancer survivor herself, was trying to get the loan owners to sit down with her for a state-mandated foreclosure mediation session.
After thousands of people signed a petition in support of the Mitchells and lots of media coverage, the lenders finally agreed to restructure her payments.
Her story will be featured today in the Culture Project’s “Blueprint for Accountability: The Wall St-Washington Connection.” the theatrical reenactment and panel discussion out of Washington D.C. features some big names, including Van Jones, Ron Suskind and Eliot Spitzer. It will happen live in D.C., but you can watch online (see video player below). Broadcast is 4 p.m. today (March 27).
From Washington CAN:
Her story highlighted the bad practices of the big banks and epitomized the struggle that millions of homeowners were facing. Dixie launched a national petition and quickly received 7,385 signatures of support from across the country. We worked with Dixie to get the petition signatures delivered to her mortgage company in Florida while we held a press conference at her home in Seattle. Due to the volume of petition signatures and the expansive media coverage of Dixie’s plight, her mortgage company finally agreed to modify her loan.
And now Dixie’s story is going national. The Culture Project in New York heard about Dixie and is featuring her story in their event next week: “Blueprint for Accountability: The Wall Street-Washington Connection.” Through theatrical representations of personal stories and a panel discussion, the program will confront the economic crisis and the role the big banks played in crashing our economy.
Panelists include:
Eliot Spitzer, Former New York Governor
Matt Taibbi, Author and Contributing Editor at Rolling Stone
Ron Suskind, Pulitzer Prize-Winning Author and Journalist
Van Jones, Author and President, Rebuild the Dream
Heather McGhee, Demos, Washington Director
Jesse LaGreca, Occupy Wall Street Activist
Although the event is taking place in Washington DC, they will be live-streaming, which will allow folks to watch and support Dixie from the west coast.
When: Tuesday March 27th at 7:00 pm EST/4:00pm PST
LIVE STREAM LINK: http://blueprint.fora.tv
You can join in on the conversation through social media as well:
Facebook: Facebook.com/Blueprint4Acct
Twitter: @Blueprint4Acct #WallStWashington
UPDATE: You can watch the program in its entirety at the FORA.tv website (Dixie’s story starts around the 23:00 mark):
Culture Project: Blueprint for Accountability from Culture Project on FORA.tv
How do you manage to NOT own your home after 45 years living there.
I thought this was great, so many salient points were made by each of the panelists.
Recommended, this is such an important discussion to be having.
Borrowing against it with adjustable rate mortgages, then complaining when the rates adjust.
Even under reasonable circumstances, one might take a second mortgage out for remodeling. Not everyone buys and remodels at the same time. Some do it over time or remodel at a time when they would choose between moving or remodeling.
It’s interesting how the first two commenters are blaming the victim. The point here is she had a legal mortgage agreement and the banks were not honoring the agreement but instead tried to manipulate the situation to make a quick profit at her expense.
How does one not own their home after 45 years? Second mortages to finance their chidrens education, pay for medical expenses or as previously stated perhaps remodel.
The real questions is how one can be so clueless and callous to the plight of someone losing their home in the face of so much documented and overwhelimng abuse by bankers and mortage brokers. What kind of people are you anyway?
People make mistakes. It happens. They get taken advantage of by banks (we all do to some extent). Yet why should, and how can, the rest of us distribute the burden just because these people cry louder than others. I know tons of people that are struggling to pay for their real estate optimism. If they all get away with not paying then I will have to pay for them.
Why don’t the Mithells get a nice appartment like I lived in while everyone else was paying too much for their homes. It’s a simple solution that hurts nobody. The Mitchells won’t be able to pay the bills moving forward anyway. In 3-5 years we’ll here more crying for help. Help yourself – It’s the only thing that works.
If you want to be communists about it then let’s start building those ugly eastern block concrete appartments and get in the bread line. Uncle Sam will cover us to make sure we all have a meager crumby life. Your free health insurance will get your an amputation and a wooden leg rather than the high class medical system we have developed.