By Kelly Obit, SUN Banking Organizer, Syracuse, NY

On Thursday, May 27th over 100 residents from the south and near-west sides of Syracuse attended an electric public meeting hosted by Syracuse United Neighbors' (SUN) Banking Committee.

The purpose of the meeting was to highlight SUN's recent victories to combat predatory lending and to expose new predatory lending problems faced by Syracuse residents.

Working with a coalition of neighborhood groups from around the country under the banner of National People's Action, SUN has won local agreements with both CitiFinancial and Fairbanks Capital Corp. that benefit all Syracuse residents. Inez Killingsworth, Co-Chair of National People's Action attended the meeting to explain the national agreements and how local families can work with SUN to improve their mortgage loans.

Top CitiFinancial officials attended the meeting and committed to review all loans submitted by SUN. Earlier in the day, SUN gave CitiFinancial officials a tour of Syracuse neighborhoods that have been affected by bad predatory loans. After the tour of boarded up houses and other homes in need of repair, Citifinancial officials committed to working with SUN to find solutions that will provide more funding for homeownership and home repairs.

Predatory Lending is any loan that seeks to take advantage of the borrower and steal the equity in their home. These modern day loan sharks come at families at every stage of the process:

1. Applying for a loan—crooked appraisers inflate the value of the house, making it impossible to refinance or get a home equity loan for repairs.

2. After the loan is approved— the loan has outrageously high interest rates and hidden fees.

3. Loan payment—servicing corporations play games to get you to pay late fees and for needless services.

Residents also surfaced the issue of over-appraisal of homes at the public meeting. Residents testified that they are unable to secure loans to do repairs on their homes because their homes have been severely over appraised. SUN announced that 2 new predatory lending targets have emerged in Syracuse: HSBC bank, who has purchased one of the worst loan shark lenders in the country—Household Finance Corp.; and Fred Hawkins, owner of Joshua Herman Associates.

Sheila Golden, an owner of a Fred Hawkins-sold home stated, "Many families in Syracuse have purchased shoddy homes with loan shark financing, crooked appraisals and shyster legal advice—all provided by Mr. Hawkins. We will bring these parasites to justice. Those sleaze balls' days are numbered!"

SUN is calling on local officials to meet and negotiate a similar agreement to repair the loans of families that have been ripped off by Household Finance.