Northside P.O.W.E.R. members, including members who are underwater in their mortgages, visited both the Romney and Obama Campaign offices in Chicago on Saturday to deliver petitions signed by over 175 people. The petitions call on both presidential candidates to address the issue of underwater mortgages in this campaign.
At the Romney offices the homeowners were able to get into the offices and talk to the campaign manager who accepted the petitions and said she would do her best to deliver the petitions to Governor Romney. She also agreed to provide her contact information so that Northside P.O.W.E.R. leaders can follow up to get a report on whether or not Governor Romney received the petitions.
After leaving the Romney office the homeowners went to One Prudential Plaza, national headquarters of the Obama Campaign. There the homeowners were immediately stopped by security. They were told to leave the premises, including the outside plaza, and the Chicago police were called. The security manager did call the Obama Headquarters and asked the campaign to send a representative down to the sidewalk to accept the petitions, but the campaign refused.
The petition delivery was part of a larger national campaign “Home Is Where the Vote Is,” which is designed to give voice to the more than 15 million owners of underwater homes, that are $1.2 trillion underwater. Resetting those mortgages to fair market value would save the average underwater homeowner $543 per month, pumping $104 billion into the national economy every year. This would create 1.5 million jobs nationally.
Underwater homeowners, people who owe more on their home then what it is worth, have had their lives ripped apart. The blame falls squarely on Wall Street fraud that crashed our economy just a few years ago. But while the banks prosper because taxpayers bailed them out, millions of homeowners are now faced with their entire life savings gone, the fear of foreclosure looming over their heads, and the enormous uncertainty of whether they can provide for their children keeping them awake at night.
Principal reduction is the bold plan we need to fix the housing crisis, create jobs, and reset the economy. We are calling on President Obama and Governor Romney to make housing and its tie to our country’s economic recovery a key issue this election season and to support bold solutions like principal reduction to fix the housing crisis, create jobs and reset our economy.
The Underwater Voter is the Soccer Mom of 2012 — and our political candidates need to earn their vote.