Minnesota’s Ground Zero for Unjust Evictions

YES! Magazine / Video Report
Published: Thursday 19 July 2012
A glitch in PNC Bank’s online payment system meant the Cruz family’s home fell into foreclosure, putting it at the center of a committed community stand-off.

Alejandra and David Cruz have lived in their home for seven years. But because of a glitch on the PNC Bank's auto-billing system they have fallen into foreclosure despite being willing and able to pay their mortgage. Since then, Occupy Homes MN turned the house into a social center to protest the unfair eviction and Alejandra Cruz has put together a petition to negotiate the foreclosure, garnering more than 200,000 signatures already.



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1 comments on "Minnesota’s Ground Zero for Unjust Evictions"

majorpayne

July 20, 2012 2:26pm

While banks take the brunt of the foreclosure blame, most people ignore state property taxes. A homeowner who has paid off the mortgage still may encounter a huge burden if income drops sharply.

North Dakota recently asked its voters to repeal its property tax (Measure 2), but Big Business didn't like that idea. You see, the property tax is quite expensive to collect (tax assessors' salaries and so forth), and income tax is not. That's why the state preferred to raise its income tax and abolish the property tax.

However, most rich people don't like taxes that cost them a lot of money and don't care about taxes that hurt poor people. It's really easy to convince somebody who is poor to follow the advice of someone who is rich. (Common retort: "Why are you so against someone who works hard and is successful?)

Big money interests invested $529,000 to do the convincing, and the rich team won by a 2-to-1 margin. One surprising thing: AARP invested $20,000 to defeat the measure. So, is AARP stupid or just being an insurance company?