OCCUPY AND DEFEND OUR HOMES!

Formed during 2011, Hands Off Our Homes continues to promote the ideas put forth throughout the Occupy movement that we can defend ourselves and our neighbors against illegal and inhumane foreclosure actions.
The trigger for the current economic depression was, officially, the 2008 Mortgage meltdown, whose epicenter is in Vallejo and northern Contra Costa County [link].

Justice for Sabrina Carter's family! (2014-04) [link]

Examples of Foreclosure and Tenent Defense during the Occupy! movement of 2011 and 2012:

GG Home Defended by Occupy Oakland Foreclosure Defense Group
[http://northbayuprising.blogspot.com/2013/03/gg-home-defended-by-occupy-oakland.html]

"Home Defenders’ Barbecue Report" [http://northbayuprising.blogspot.com/2013/03/gg-home-defended-by-occupy-oakland.html]:
The skies were cloudy, the temperature was perfect, and on Day 118 of the defense of Jodie Randolph’s home, many of the home defenders gathered to pat ourselves on the back, eat good food, and catch up with each other. The first batch of our stylin’ t-shirts was distributed to volunteers.
You can see some of the shirts (clenched fist under a roof) in this picture.
Jodie is deep in negotiation with Morgan Stanley and we’ve got her back! We’re looking forward to a victory party not too long from now.


It's Time to Keep Families in their Homes!
It's time that Big Banks work with families and pay to rebuild our communities:
* Agree to across-the-board reductions in payments on the principal loans
* Commit to rebuilding our communities by funding public education and vital public services
* Put families in foreclosures back in their homes
Take the Pledge to Defend our Communities, Homes and Families!
Call [877-633-9251] or email [oohousingnetwork@gmail.com]
Help Defend Gayla Newsome RECLAIM Her Home by calling:
* Martin Goodman, President of Residential Mortgage Income Fund: [858-752-6150]
SUGGESTED SCRIPT: "Hello, I am calling for Martin Goodman. I am calling on behalf of homeowner Gayla Newsome. She wants to stay in her home. Your company wrongfully foreclosed on Gayla and you need to recognize her right to stay in the house that's hers. Thank you."
* Jamie Dimon, CEO of JP Morgan Chase Bank (who made $20.8 million  in 2010).
Call him NOW! [212-270-0121]
Chase's failure to work with Gayla helped lead her into Foreclosure.
SUGGESTED SCRIPT: "Hello, I am calling to leave a message for Jamie Dimon. I am calling on behalf of homeowner Gayla Newsome. She wants to stay in her home and I am calling you up to ask that you do the right thing and give her a loan modification with a principal writedown. Thank you."





2013-02-24 "‘Banking on Vacancy’ study reveals homelessness amidst abundant housing"
by Caleb T. Maupin [http://www.workers.org/foreclosures/homelessness_0301/index.html]:
Picture The Homeless recently performed a great service to the people of New York City, the United States and the world. PTH describes itself as an organization “founded and led by homeless people” that opposes the “quality of life laws” that “criminalize homeless people.” PTH aims to “change these laws and policies as well as to challenge the root causes of homelessness.”
PTH, along with Hunter College, recently conducted a study called “Banking on Vacancy” that sent 295 volunteers to walk the streets of 20 of New York City’s 59 community districts to investigate the housing situation. They discovered that there were approximately 3,500 vacant residential buildings and about 2,400 vacant lots in those districts.
Researchers estimate the vacant buildings could house 70,000 people, while the lots could house more than 120,000 people if buildings were constructed.
The study shows that the 40,000 people in New York City’s shelter system, a number that has doubled since 2002, no longer have any rational reason to be homeless or to endure poor conditions in overcrowded shelters. A rational system could easily provide a decent home.
While the report concentrates on the findings, it also makes a strong argument that the rule of private property is an obstacle to a rational solution to the housing problem.
The report points out that often apartments are kept vacant for years and years so that real estate developers can remove a building from rent controls. PTH calls this “banking on homelessness.” It makes a proposal to restrict the amount of time a landlord can keep a property vacant — up to three years, which is modest but still challenges private property and its owners. It also asks that the city do its own study of similar conditions throughout the entire city.
The report also argues that a construction program for empty lots would provide jobs for many workers, while resolving the housing crisis for many others, if it were combined with a program to provide affordable housing to low-income New Yorkers. PTH’s position is that the high cost of funding shelters would be much better spent subsidizing rent for currently homeless people and providing housing space.
This study illustrates the words of the labor anthem, “Solidarity Forever”: “We stand outcast and starving midst the wonders we have made.”
The current global capitalist meltdown was touched off in 2008 when the housing bubble burst. This “burst” did not occur due to any shortage of living space. Millions of construction workers, bricklayers, architects, engineers, electricians and other workers sweated hard and long to create countless private homes, apartment buildings, condominiums and other decent places of residence.
Yet, despite all this abundance, homelessness continues, and many housing units made by collective human labor remain vacant. They remain vacant because under capitalism housing is not provided because people need it. Housing is only useful if profits — in this example, very high profits — can be made.
This very important report will force many to rethink the “free market” that people in the U.S. have been taught to worship.
In the modern age of “We are the 99%,” this study conducted by PTH and Hunter College sheds light on the real problem. The fact that the basis of homelessness is that housing, production and all economic activity is conducted, not for human need, but to make profits.
To read a copy of the complete report, “Banking on Vacancy,” visit the PTH site at [picturethehomeless.org].

"Indicted for bank fraud, landlord Scott Safadi is evicting many renters in Burlingame"

(2015-09-22, by Lynda Carson) [tenantsrule@) yahoo.com] [http://is.gd/gAxKPI]:
Also see "Scott Safadi" biography (archived 2015-09-23, wikiland.net) [archive.is/yZMW1]

Landlord, Scott Ghais Safadi, who made the news this week for evicting renters from their housing at an 18 unit apartment building at 1111 Douglas Avenue, in Burlingame, is scheduled for a conference in court for bank fraud, on September 28 at 1:30pm, Courtroom 4, 5th Floor, 280 South First Street, San Jose. Case number 5:12-cr-00465-EJD-2 - USA v. Scott.  Click here [http://is.gd/nIgPAe].
Scott Ghais Safadi is scheduled to appear in court on September 28 with his uncle Muhammad Oussama Safadi, and Raquel Ramirez. All three were indicted on June 13, 2012, for bank fraud, conspiracy to commit bank fraud, making false statements to a bank, and aiding and abetting, according to Melinda Haag, United States Attorney.
In addition to being indicted for bank fraud and other crimes, Cal Bay Property Management’s president Scott Safadi, is in the news this week for displacing many long-term, low-income residents, at 1111 Douglas Avenue, an 18 unit rental apartment in Burlingame.
According to Manta, Cal Bay Property Management is a privately held company in Paolo Alto, with Scott Safadi as the principal. However, there is not a corporation listing for Cal Bay Property Management presently listed with the Secretary of State in California. Scott Safadi resides in Saratoga, California, with his family. See Scott Safadi Property Management website (archived 2015-09-23) [http://is.gd/uOG4ih].
A search of records with the Secretary of State for Scott Safadi Property Management, does not turn up any records, in addition to the search that did not turn up any records for a corporation named Cal Bay Property Management, in California.
Additionally, according to Trulia, the 18 unit, 18,189 sq.ft apartment building that so many are facing eviction at by Scott Safadi, was built in 1969, and was sold for $6,600,000 on August 13, 2015.
The renters have faced displacement since the building was recently acquired. The displacement scheme involving massive rent increases and no-cause evictions/terminations, is taking place under the guise of building renovations, and some of the tenants have connected with Community Legal Services in East Palo Alto for legal advice, according to The Daily Journal.
“This case is a textbook example of how unfettered real estate speculation is tearing apart our communities,” said Daniel Saver, a housing attorney with the agency. “Within mere weeks of completing the sale, the new management issued mass eviction and rent increase notices. This reflects a business model that is predicated upon displacing working families. There are a lot of good landlords out there, but increasingly we see speculators like these who callously seek to maximize profits at the expense of people,” reported in The Daily Journal.
Now that many renters are facing displacement and homelessness at this location because of greed, and a lack of renter protections in Burlingame, it may be possible that some of the tenants are wishing that Scott Safadi was already in prison for being indicted for bank fraud, and other crimes. Crimes that include penalties including a maximum imprisonment of 30 years, if convicted.
It is possible that if Scott Safadi was in prison already, his company Cal Bay Property Management, may not have been in existence to take control of the occupied apartment building in Burlingame, where so many renters are now being displaced from their long-time housing.
According to reports, some of the renters are seniors, seven tenants have already officially received no-cause terminations from Scott Safadi, plus two others have moved out, and the remainder have had their rents increase significantly.
But the real tragic plight of so many people being displaced and threatened with homelessness, is that the renters in Burlingame do not have renter protections because Burlingame has an anti-rent control ordinance on it’s books as the law of the land. An unfair law that Cindy Cornell of Burlingame Advocates for Renter Protections wants to see overturned.

The Scheme To Defraud Financial Institutions And Low-Income Home Buyers -
As noted above, Scott Ghais Safadi is scheduled to appear in court on September 28 with his uncle Muhammad Oussama Safadi, and Raquel Ramirez, because they were allegedly involved in a housing construction property scheme resulting in a $5,560,050 loss to IndyMac Bank, Fremont Investment Loan, and National City Bank of Indiana. Loans were also financed through Green Point Mortage.
According to the indictment, the Safadis' obtained proceeds from the bank fraud scheme for the construction and sale involving 14 homes, which allowed them to defraud in an amount of $4,570,928. The name of the 14 home subdivision was Rancho Amistoso LLC, in Salinas, California.
Additionally, the scheme to defraud primarily involved low-income home buyers being solicited to purchase single family homes priced in excess of $650,000.
The conspirators knew that for twelve of the fourteen homes being sold that the borrowers they solicited had insufficient incomes and assets to qualify for the mortgages needed to buy the properties being offered.
As part of the scheme to defraud the banks, lending institutions, and home buyers, the Safadi’s referred prospective low-income clients to Raquel Ramirez, being assured that Ramirez, and her employees at Mission Home Realty, were willing to falsely inflate and misrepresent the borrower’s income, assets, and employment information so as to enable the borrower to qualify for the loans needed to buy a Rancho Amistoso property.
According to the indictment, Ramirez agreed to accept a sales commission of 2% and more per transaction, and agreed to do what was necessary to close the sales, in addition to falsify the buyer’s loan applications. Ramirez was assisted by her employees at Mission Homes Realty who served as loan processors, and obtained and submitted the false documents to the financial institutions in support of the loan applications at the direction of Ramirez, and the Safadis.
As an inducement for the unqualified buyers to agree to the loan, some of the buyers were offered a $26,000 rebate that would be paid to the buyers when the deal was closed.
In short, many of the homes later ended up in foreclosure and were sold at a loss costing millions to the financial institutions involved in the scheme.
According to public records with the Secretary of State, the status of Mission Homes Realty and Financial Services is suspended, involving Raquel Ramirez as agent for service of process.
Additionally, according to other public records, the broker license of Raquel Ramirez (License ID: 01368418), of Mission Homes Realty, is expired.
Despite being indicted for his alleged activities, and facing 30 years imprisonment, including a maximum fine of $1,000,000, Scott Safadi is still actively involved in another property scheme that is presently displacing many long-term renters, at an 18 unit apartment building, in Burlingame.
Scott Ghais Safadi is scheduled to appear in court for bank fraud on September 28 with his uncle Muhammad Oussama Safadi, and Raquel Ramirez.
Click here for indictment case involving Scott Ghais Safadi, his uncle Muhammad Oussama Safadi, and Raquel Ramirez (.pdf) [http://is.gd/MjkDeq].

Scott Safadi does not have a real estate license -
As an after thought, I should have mentioned that the records with the Department of Real Estate (DRE) in California reveal that Scott Safadi does not have a real estate or brokers license to operate in California as a property manager.
So, in addition to the public records revealing that Cal Bay Property Management is not listed as a corporation in California, and other records exist revealing that Scott Safadi does not have a real estate license/brokers license, one has to question if Scott Safadi is legally operating a property management company, while evicting so many people at 1111 Douglas Avenue, in Burlingame.

(Reader's comment) Cal Bay Property Management is a fictitious business name -
"Cal Bay Property Management" is registered as a fictitious business name in Santa Clara County, for "West Coast Property Development, Inc.", and West Coast Property Development, Inc., is a corporation for which Scott Saladi is agent for service of process.