Blacks are suffering like no other in housing messing.
Feds take over mortgage giants. With nearly one in 10 U.S. homeowners struggling to pay their mortgages, the Bush administration Sunday took over mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in an attempt to avoid a complete housing meltdown. Together, the two government-sponsored firms hold or back half of America’s mortgage debt. By putting Fannie and Freddie into a conservatorship - removing CEOs Daniel Mudd and Richard Syron, respectively - it is the “best means of protecting our markets and the taxpayers from the systemic risk posed by the current financial condition” of the two enterprises, says Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson. “…[T]hey will no longer be managed with a strategy to maximize common shareholder returns, a strategy which historically encouraged risk-taking,” Paulson said in a statement. Under the government plan, the Treasury and Federal Housing Finance Agency would purchase a new class of preferred stock in the two entities that “will ensure that each company maintains a positive net worth,” Paulson said.  This is “more efficient than a one-time equity injection, because it will be used only as needed and on terms that Treasury has set,” he said. “With this agreement, Treasury receives senior preferred equity shares and warrants that protect taxpayers. Additionally, under the terms of the agreement, common and preferred shareholders bear losses ahead of the new government senior preferred shares.” While Americans across the racial spectrum are suffering in the current mortgage crisis, nobody has been more affected than Blacks and Hispanics, who, according to the NAACP, have been unscrupulously targeted with high-interest loans. The civil rights group has filed a class-action lawsuit against a dozen and a half of the largest mortgage companies, saying that they took advantage of Black borrowers.

NAACP names voting outreach director. The nation’s oldest and largest civil rights organization, which has made voter registration a key component of its outreach during its century-long history, is taking its voter-empowerment efforts to a new level. “In addition to protecting the right to vote, we will reach out to displaced and recently purged voters who need our assistance in getting their voting rights restored,” said NAACP Interim President & CEO Dennis Courtland Hayes. The NAACP has appointed Kirk Clay to head its Civic Engagement Department, which is designed to remove roadblocks and disincentives to voting. This includes ensuring voter empowerment, protecting voters’ constitutional rights, monitoring redistricting and census statistics and promoting ballot initiatives to address social justice issues. “I am proud to represent the NAACP during this historic moment in time,” said Clay. “One of my priorities will be to ensure that every eligible American who wants to vote can, and that every vote is counted.” Clay worked as the Director of Outreach for major gifts at Common Cause where he also developed a diverse national coalition of strategic partners to promote election reform, ethics in government and government accountability. He worked at the National Coalition on Black Civic Participation as deputy director and is the former co-chair of that organization’s Black Youth Vote program.

TAGS: director, fannie, feds, freddie, Mac, mae, mortgage, NAACP, treasury, Vote, youth

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