Fed-Up Homeowners: “Make Deutsche Bank Pay!”

During the US real estate bubble, Deutsche Bank made $$ billions in fees by buying up sub-prime mortgages in US urban areas, packaging them into "CDOs" (Collateralized Debt Obligations) and selling the worthless paper to clueless investors such as the German Landesbanken.  The investors even paid Deutsche Bank to act as trustee, so when the US homeowners default on the underlying mortgage, DB serves with with a notice of foreclosure and evicts them from their homes.  In certain cities such as Cleveland, Akron, and Stockton, California there are blocks and blocks of empty, boarded-up, rotting properties controlled by Deutsche Bank.

Milwaukee, Wisconsin is no different.  There, three banks – Deutsche, Wells Fargo and US Bank – control 25% of the foreclosed properties.  But members of the community have begun to take action, demanding that Deutsche Bank and the other two banks each put up $25 million to rehabilitate and sell the properties to responsible owners:

In addition, it's asking that the banks stop selling to speculators
through auctions or mass sales. It also asks the banks to pay to
demolish the properties that can't be fixed and then donate that land
to a community land trust for future residential construction.

Common
Ground, an affiliate of the Industrial Areas Foundation, a national
community organizing network, started here in 2008 and represents 50
faith and community organizations in the four-county area. It developed
its proposals after spending the past year researching the foreclosure
issue.

In
all, 250 Common Ground leaders have conducted neighborhood walks in
Milwaukee, taken photographic surveys, examined records, and
interviewed a variety of public officials and housing foreclosure
experts on the detrimental effects vacant and boarded up homes have on
residents and neighborhoods.

The community organizers were unmoved by Deutsche Bank's claim that it is merely the trustee and has no beneficial ownership interest in the properties:

"Do not hide behind the legal excuse that we are 'only the trustees,' "
Connolly said. "You are responsible. You broke it." The crowd chanted
back – "You fix it."

Representatives from Deutsche Bank were handed a detailed report (pdf) on the damage done to Milwaukee and the proposal for how it could be fixed with the giant bank's financial contribution.

John T. Gallagher, a spokesman for Deutsche Bank, said officials had not reviewed the report.

Hopefully similar groups will organize in Cleveland, Akron, Boston, Miami and a hundred other cities demanding that the banks pay for wrecking their communities.