Mortgage Reform and Anti-Predatory Lending Act of 2007
Floor Speech
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Mr. ELLISON. First of all, let me thank the gentleman from Massachusetts for leading this important debate in our country. No doubt, the American Dream has always been homeownership and yet, with exploding ARMs, with prepayment penalty and other such exotic products, that dream of homeownership has become an American nightmare.
Mr. Chairman, I'd love to be able to take every Member of this body through a tour of north Minneapolis. There are blocks on my community where every other house is boarded and vacant. The fact is that for the people who have made every single mortgage payment, and never late, they suffer because of this crisis because their home values have been dropping and plummeting.
We have seen our cities suffer, we have seen communities become unattractive nuisances, which were once vibrant places where people owned their own homes and did well. It's not because the market worked right; it's because it worked wrong. It's because of defective financial products, defective financial products which are addressed in this bill.
It's important to understand that this bill is not designed to harm the subprime market. It's designed to reform and correct it and make it work properly, Mr. Chairman. The fact is that it does not help any homeowner who gets into a 227 with a prepayment penalty, who eventually can't pay the mortgage after it explodes in their face and then lose their home. We are not better off because of something that happens like that. That is what this bill is here to stop.
So, Mr. Chairman, let me say that this is an important part of making the American Dream come true for middle-class Americans, making sure that when they buy a home, they can actually keep that home and that it will be a product that can enhance themselves and their families and the communities they come from.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. ELLISON. First of all, let me thank the gentleman from Massachusetts for leading this important debate in our country. No doubt, the American Dream has always been homeownership and yet, with exploding ARMs, with prepayment penalty and other such exotic products, that dream of homeownership has become an American nightmare.
Mr. Chairman, I'd love to be able to take every Member of this body through a tour of north Minneapolis. There are blocks on my community where every other house is boarded and vacant. The fact is that for the people who have made every single mortgage payment, and never late, they suffer because of this crisis because their home values have been dropping and plummeting.
We have seen our cities suffer, we have seen communities become unattractive nuisances, which were once vibrant places where people owned their own homes and did well. It's not because the market worked right; it's because it worked wrong. It's because of defective financial products, defective financial products which are addressed in this bill.
It's important to understand that this bill is not designed to harm the subprime market. It's designed to reform and correct it and make it work properly, Mr. Chairman. The fact is that it does not help any homeowner who gets into a 227 with a prepayment penalty, who eventually can't pay the mortgage after it explodes in their face and then lose their home. We are not better off because of something that happens like that. That is what this bill is here to stop.
So, Mr. Chairman, let me say that this is an important part of making the American Dream come true for middle-class Americans, making sure that when they buy a home, they can actually keep that home and that it will be a product that can enhance themselves and their families and the communities they come from.
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