Members of Occupy Petaluma and other advocates for a holiday respite from home foreclosures celebrated after mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac announced Thursday that they would suspend home evictions for a two-week period during the holidays.
"We did a little dance," said John Bertucci, the new media contact for Occupy Petaluma. Occupy Petaluma kicked off a local push for a holiday moratorium on home foreclosures this November, asking for the support of city council and for buy-in from local banks.
The moratorium brings a stop to home evictions between Dec. 19, 2011 and Jan. 2, 2012. The legal process for a foreclosure might continue during this period, but no families will actually be evicted.
At its Nov. 21 meeting, the City Council voted to support the drive for a moratorium by asking mortgage lenders and regulators to halt foreclosures during the holidays.
"I'm thrilled for this partial victory," said Councilmember Tiffany Renee, who had started an online petition to the Federal Housing Finance Agency to ask for such a moratorium.
She said that while the hope had been for the institutions to announce a month-long break on foreclosures and all related activity, the two week moratorium would still be a help to families in foreclosure, buying them time to seek other options.
Representative Lynn Woolsey, who had been gathering signatures on a similar letter to the FHFA from fellow members of congress, said she was "very pleased" about the decision in a statement today.
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