Jackson protests foreclosure sales

By Staff

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

It’s the first Tuesday of the month, and thousands of foreclosed properties are going up for auction on courthouse steps across metro Atlanta.

The Rev. Jesse Jackson and about 50 members of his Rainbow PUSH Coalition held a prayer vigil Monday at the Federal Reserve Bank in Atlanta to protest the foreclosure sales.

The number of properties scheduled to be auctioned on the courthouse steps today hit 9,930 for the 13-county metro Atlanta area, according to Alpharetta-based Equity Depot.

According to Jackson, “taxpayers have given billions to big banks but we are still losing more homes than we were this time last year. We are watering the leaves and not the roots of the economy.”

Foreclosure filings were up 32 percent in July over the same month last year, according to RealtyTrac Inc. More than 360,000 households, or one in every 355 homes, received a foreclosure-related notice, such as a notice of default or trustee’s sale. That’s the highest monthly level since the foreclosure-listing firm began publishing the data more than four years ago.

Banks repossessed more than 87,000 homes in July, up from about 79,000 homes a month earlier, RealtyTrac said.

Jackson planned to meet Tuesday with a national group of pastors to plot strategy. Rainbow PUSH has called on Citibank and Wells Fargo to withdraw mortgages from Tuesday’s sales.

The Rainbow PUSH regional conference will be held in Atlanta Oct. 16-17 at the Hyatt Regency.