Return to Current Issue

The fight is on a new level now. We've marked our first major victory against Citigroup. At the end of June the corporation announced it would stop selling single-premium credit insurance. First, community groups should break open the champagne and celebrate their victory forcing Citigroup to make its first right move since buying The Associates.

Then it's time for us to get back to work and to continue putting the pressure on the largest predatory lender in the country. Citigroup must commit to cleaning up all their loans by stopping the other predatory practices that have caused thousands of people to lose their homes. Our groups have pioneered this movement against predatory lending for the past three years and will continue to work for the communities until the problem is stopped.

Pressure will start in mid-July and throughout the year with the beginning of a series of public hearings in seven cities across the country on the destructive effects of predatory lending. Representatives from the Federal Trade Commission will be in attendance. These hearings are our chance to show the bureaucrats the real deal of what's going on in our communities. These meetings need to show our resolve, our determination and most of all our anger.

When that person from the FTC steps off the plane from Washington DC and walks into one of our neighborhoods he/she needs to see not only an angry group of people, but one powerful group united with others across the county who want predatory lending eliminated in their neighborhoods. The purpose of these hearings is to show the FTC representatives first hand the destructive quality of these loans on neighborhoods.

The piles of debt, the abandoned homes, the very people who were swindled by unscrupulous lenders will all demonstrate the negative reality of these loans. The hearings are also to push the FTC into further investigation and action against predatory lenders, especially the largest predatory lender in the world, Citigroup and its sub prime affiliate Associates First Capital Corp.