OntheWilderSide

There is a big difference between how to get attention and a financial bailout from the government, depending on if you are a wealthy corporation, or a 90 year-old-citizen:

(excerpt from) Ohio.com:
Akron woman’s foreclosure gets U.S. response
Kucinich takes plight of owner who shot herself to Congress; Fannie Mae [finally!] forgives mortgage
BY Phil Trexler, Betty Lin-Fisher and Stephanie Warsmith. Beacon Journal staff writers

Published on Saturday, Oct 04, 2008

The shots that 90-year-old Addie Polk fired into her chest as she was about to be evicted from her foreclosed Akron home were heard in Washington, D.C.

On Friday, as Congress was preparing a bailout of Wall Street, Rep. Dennis Kucinich, D-Cleveland, took the House floor and decried Polk’s plight.

By midafternoon, the Federal National Mortgage Association (Fannie Mae) announced it would dismiss its foreclosure action against Polk, forgive her mortgage and allow her to return to the home where she’s lived since 1970.

In the meantime, Polk remains in Akron General Medical Center.
peace

She is expected to recover from the chest wounds she suffered Wednesday when she apparently shot herself as Summit County sheriff’s deputies came with foreclosure eviction papers…

Brian Faith, a Fannie Mae spokesman, said the case came to the company’s attention after publicity about Polk’s apparent suicide attempt and Kucinich’s statements about the case in Washington…

[Representative Dennis] Kucinich said he read about what happened to Polk in the Akron Beacon Journal and rushed onto the House floor to relay the story to his colleagues.

He said he is frustrated that the country’s $700 billion financial bailout plan doesn’t provide help to people like Polk…

”She is the most pleasant individual that I’ve ever met. . . . She is very proud, very independent and pretty much a loner. She has never complained about anything,” Dodson [her pastor] said. ”If we had known, if I had known, this would never had occurred. We would have rescued her.”

Dodson said that in his more than four years as pastor, the church has helped at least two other members stop foreclosures.

Akron City Council President Marco Sommerville said he intends to work with county officials to better help those facing foreclosure.

He said foreclosures are rampant in Akron. On the east side, he said 99 foreclosures were filed in one recent month.

One concept he is proposing would be written notification of available services to everyone who is served with foreclosure papers.

”The bottom line is there are a lot of other people out there that need help too,” he said. ”And we have to find a way to help people and make sure they are not driven to taking drastic measures to get attention to their serious problem.”

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Phil Trexler can be reached at 330-996-3717 or ptrexler at thebeaconjournal dot com
Staff writers Carl Chancellor and Colette Jenkins contributed to this report.

Filed under: News