Action Disrupts Foreclosure Auction

On Friday, June 29, housing advocates, homeowners and allies gathered in front of Alameda County Courthouse and blocked the auction of foreclosed homes including that of CJJC Homeowner Clinic Coordinator Nell Myhand and Synthia Green. People power stopped the sale on Friday and we send a thank you to everyone who came out in support. Check out our photos!

Meanwhile, the state legislature passed the Homeowner’s Bill of Rights today. The bill establishes important protections for homeowners at risk of foreclosure. The bill now heads to Gov. Jerry Brown for signature.

SB900 and AB278, sponsored by Attorney General Kamala Harris, would among other things:

Restrict dual tracking, making it illegal for banks to move forward with foreclosure plans while still negotiating with a homeowner about a loan modification.
Require proper and accurate foreclosure documentation

Require banks to assign a single point of contact rather than making homeowners try to explain their situation to a different person each time they call
Provide borrowers with the right to sue the banks when they violate the  law.
Protect tenants who are renting homes that have gone into foreclosure.
Increased enforcement from mortgage fraud.

Nearly 2 million homeowners are threatened by foreclosure and 500,000 are predicted this year for California alone.  Since 2007, there have been more than 10,000 completed foreclosures in Oakland, according to a new report from “Who Owns Your Neighborhood” by the Urban Strategies Council. Of the 10,508 completed foreclosures in the city since 2007, 62 percent (6,523) were either still owned by a financial institution or had been acquired by an investor.  

Investors at auctions such as the one we were at, symbolize how the foreclosure crisis has fast-forwarded the process of gentrification in our communities, pushing out working class people and communities of color, destabilizing neighborhoods, driving up homelessness, and destroying our financial well-being.
At Friday’s Auction Action, protestors followed bidders and auctioneers, banging  pots and pans, pounding drums, blowing whistles and chanting messages through the bullhorn. The bidders worked through earpieces, text messages and notes, doing all they could to ignore us. Apparently, they became so frustrated in their efforts, the auction was shut down for the day.

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Elruido de las ollas y sartenes, haciendo sonar silbatos y gritando fuerte ayudó a cerrar con éxito la subasta frente al Juzgado del Condado de Alameda, 29 de junio! Lea los detalles aquí.

También estamos entusiasmados con la aprobación de la Ley de Propietarios de los derechos por parte de la Legislatura del Estado de julio 2, que ofrece importantes protecciones para propietarios en riesgo de ejecución hipotecaria. Es un triunfo histórico para los propietarios de California! Por favor llame al gobernador Jerry Brown en el 916-445-2841, e instarlo a que firme este proyecto de ley.
Y un nuevo informe y excelente publicado por el Consejo de Estrategias Urbanas "Quién posee a su vecindario" sólo demuestra lo que hemos estado viendo y escuchando a nosotros mismos de nuestros clientes, que hay una concentración desproporcionada de particulares fuera de la ciudad los inversores...

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Stop the Sales! Auction Action

Fraud is a crime, not a business plan.

When: Friday, June 29 at 11:30am
Where: Alameda County Courthouse, 1225 Fallon St.,  Oakland


We are inviting you to join us on Friday, June 29, when housing advocates, homeowners and allies will gather in front of Alameda County Courthouse to block the auction of 47 homes including that of CJJC Homeowner Clinic Coordinator Nell Myhand and Synthia Green, who have been demanding that the bank provide all appropriate endorsements including documentation of the transfer of ownership of the property to the current holder of the note for the loan.
So far, Chase/Freddie Mac have not provided the documentation.  

No documents on the loan, Chase won't get this home!

For more information, email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Hassle-Free Housing for Tenants

Tenants living in some of San Francisco’s quickly disappearing sources for affordable housing – rent controlled units – face a particular situation when property owners wish to evict them for profit.

One of the quickest and cheapest ways to evict a tenant is by harassing them until the situation becomes unbearable and the tenant moves on their own. When they leave, the landlord has an empty unit that they can rent to new tenants at market rate rent.

So CJJC, the San Francisco Tenant's Union along with various housing allies are working with SF supervisors to introduce an ordinance change that would make the current anti-harassment protections stronger and easier to enforce.  This hassle-free housing ordinance will allow tenants to collect damages from their landlords for each incident of harassment.

Individual property owners are not the only ones guilty of harassing their tenants. The foreclosure crisis effect on tenants has been severe and many have been illegally evicted by banks, real estate speculators and real estate agents that receive a better payoff the sooner they get tenants out. This ordinance change will apply to them as well and tenants will be able to hold banks and all those profiting from the foreclosure crisis responsible.

We want to ensure that SF tenants have a right to hassle free housing – and that their rights are respected, whether they are tenants living in long term rent controlled unit paying below-market rent, or living in rent-controlled homes that have been foreclosed. Closing the loopholes that exist in protection against harassment is one crucial way to make sure all of our right to stay is protected.

LIBERATION INK: Don't Go Shirtless

"It is our duty to fight for our freedom. It is our duty to win. We must love each other and support each other. We have nothing to lose but our chains." — Assata Shakur  

This is just one of the quotes and images that appear on the T-shirts created by Liberation Ink. Now, the on-line site where people have been ordering social justice T-shirts since 2004, has become a nonprofit project of Causa Justa :: Just Cause.

We’re excited about bringing Liberation Ink into our CJJC family.

Local, Sweatshop-free and Union printed T-shirts and bags

Formerly a worker-owned collective, Liberation Ink was predominantly volunteer-run for the majority of its existence. The collective sold thousands of shirts and raised tens of thousands of dollars, which it donated to local movement organizations.

This year the collective donated Liberation Ink to Causa Justa and we now run it as part of our organization.

As their art and activism increased in the world, members of the collective realized it would take more hands to keep it running, and even grow it.

“It's an honor for Causa Justa that the worker-owners who founded Liberation Ink entrusted us with this visionary project,” says Maria Poblet, CJJC executive director.

Worker collectives have long been an integral part of the social justice movement. They serve as critical examples of the kind of work places that all workers should enjoy and contribute to advancing democratic practices and processes. 

Emunah Yuka Edinburg, one of six founding members in 2004, remained an active part of the collective all the way through to the transition to CJJC this year. Emunah talks about why they founded the collective.

“Since we'd all known each other from student organizing days, and several of us had done arts activism work on campus, it just made sense to pool our skills and interests. I learned so much! None of us knew how to start a business, or how to run it. Of course, that would have helped, but we just dived in. We learned how to silkscreen print, how to work successfully with friends, how to run an online store, how to produce designs that are true to our values/politics yet widely appealing enough to actually make money! And so much more...”

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"When we first started Liberation Ink as a tiny project out of our garage, we'd always hoped that a community organization would take it on as a part of their fundraising." — Emunah Yuka Edinburg, one of the founding members of collective

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For CJJC this social enterprise is a powerful addition. We can develop and sell shirts that spread the message of our work and that of the movement of which we are a part.

“We’ll carry forward Liberation Ink’s vision of growing grassroots support for community organizing, with beautiful wearable art that spreads messages of social justice,” says Poblet. 

“I believe that t-shirts are a great way to express one's own values, to educate others (even if it's just someone reading your back in...

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