A Nut By Any Other Name

Remember that video about the woman Acorn helped break (back) into her house?  Did you watch it, all the while thinking, “Poor baby?”

Time for a re-think.

Here is an excerpt of the story from the good Acorn folks:

“Donna used bolt cutters to break the lock to the door and re-enter the home. Unfortunately, in the six short months since the home was seized, it has been extensively damaged, essentially partially gutted. The toilets are missing, and the upstairs ceiling is badly damaged. The greatest tragedy here is that Donna worked for months with ACORN sister organization ACORN Housing Corporation to try to get the bank to modify the loan so it could be affordable, but they refused, taking the home and now allowing it to be a haven for squatters and a target of looters.

“In Houston, where one in three homes sold in January was a foreclosure and foreclosure sales accounted for 34 percent of all homes sold – a 9-percent jump from the same time last year, Sara Chavez announced her refusal to leave here home. “My mother and I don’t leave,” she said. A mother of three who cares for her sick mother, she has owned her house since 2004, but has seen her mortgage payment double from $1,000 to $2,000. She joined with ACORN Home Defenders to declare her neighborhoods a “Foreclosure Free Zone”. And the Home Defenders backed her up.  ACORN member Pennie Saldivar said, “We want to fix this problem.  We are willing to go to any means necessary”.

What isn’t mentioned is that Donna Hanks is leader in Baltimore ACORN.  Are you starting to smell anything yet?

No?

Well, here is a comment about this story.  As Paul Harvey likes to say, it is “the rest of the story”.  Read it and weep.

“Thought you might be interested in some REAL information related to this foreclosure; Donna Hanks initially purchased her home (315 South Ellwood, Baltimore, MD 21224) on 7/06/2001 for $87,000.  At some date between 2001 and 2006 she re-financed the original mortgage for the amount of $270,000 with a mortgage payment of $1,662.00.  The FIRST foreclosure on this home was filed 5/31/2006.  Donna Hanks filed for bankruptcy 6/16/06 during which a payment plan was approved for the $10,500 she was behind in her payments.  This action stopped the original foreclosure.  When she did not meet the terms of the bankruptcy re-payment, a second foreclosure action was started in January 2008.  At the time she had not made her mortgage payments since September 2007.  It should be noted that her salary per the bankruptcy paperwork was $1625 per month and she was working a 2nd and 3rd job (supposedly giving her an additional $1,275 in monthly income – the employers were not listed).  Over extended?

“Also, during 2007 she was renting our her basement illegally (she was taken to court) and receiving rent while she was not making her mortgage payments.  The mortgage company “raised” her payment $300 a month – right?  Well, not exactly; it was $340.  The amount that she had agreed to pay back in arrears.  Not exactly truthful, but what I would expect from a person with her criminal record (theft and assault 2nd degree and possession of a dangerous weapon with intent to injure).  Oh and there is the small matter of breaking and entering.  The house at 315 South Ellwood had already been sold at auction on 6/26/08 for $192,000.  It just took them until September 2008 to get her out . Nothing like public information – it seems Acorn could have found this same information before they helped this “poor” victimized woman.”

When questioned about the source of this information, the poster of the comment admitted to simply purusing public records* and included another comment:

” Hanks, who works in hotel catering, refinanced the house several times since buying it to pay for renovations. She also had to pay medical bills, because she is uninsured. The last time around, in 2005, she responded to a flyer in the mail, and got a loan of nearly 250-thousand dollars. Wells Fargo, she says, subsequently bought the loan.  (story quote)

“This woman just can’t keep her stories straight. In another interview she said she was a union worker, you ever hear of a union worker without health insurance?  She did have medical bills to pay – however she didn’t pay them according to public records.  Also, the loan was for $270,000 which closed in 2005 (if we can believe that part of her story) and by May 2006 she was already $10,500 behind in her payments.  She must have went on one heck of spending spree to blow through the almost $200,000 she netted from the re-fi.”

If ACORN intends to defend this kind of stupidity, this country needs to be defended from ACORN because it’s quite clear, at least to me, why they are named after a tree nut.

UPDATE 2/23/09:  If you are too lazy to go research the documents referenced here, blogger Michelle Malkin has posted them.

* -Property records can be found here:  http://sdatcert3.resiusa.org/rp_rewrite/ (search by address)
Maryland court records can be found here:  http://casesearch.courts.state.md.us/inquiry/inquiry-index.jsp
Maryland bankruptcy records are available on Pacer:  https://pacer.login.uscourts.gov/cgi-bin/login.pl (requires registration and they charge about $0.08 per page)