ESOP made a creative action to hit bank officials. And it worked!

A group of activists tried to contact bank officials but when the latter refused to accept the calls their answer was to barrage their gardens with bullhorns together with plastic sharks numbering thousands.

It worked! A nondescript group in Cleveland has now assisted about 12,774 borrowers to ward off foreclosure from 2005. It has stopped many from falling into the traps of loan sharks that peddled sub-prime mortgages.

The group, Empowering and Strengthening Ohio’s People has now branched off into 11 centres; among these are offices in Mansfield, Zanesville and Chillicothe. They started off with a federal funding help of $2.3 million granted in 2008 in instalments stretching up to 2009. They are anticipating another lot of funds in 2010. As yet they are ignorant about the exact amount but there are fears that the figure will not be as generous as before.

Mark Seifert of ESOP said that they had accepted the funds as a blessing but they were aware that it was coming through only because the crisis was taking a turn for the worse. There are chances that more funds would roll in but there is no surety.

The Obama government launched HAMP plan earlier this year and was supposed to make modification of mortgages smooth and easy but it has not been effective. Many continue to take the help of ESOP to negotiate through the complexities of the HAMP plan. If ESOP winds down then the borrowers would the victims. With more foreclosures the nations would ultimately suffer.

The group started off originally with the name of East Side Organizing Project of Cleveland. They worked on a slim budget and they made up for their small size by drumming up noise and drama. Once the group had been described by The Associated Press as “loud and abrasive.” They took up various issues like public school safety norms.

In 1999 there were empty chairs at their yearly meeting. It was indicative of the fact that poor in Cleveland were succumbing to foreclosure. From 2002 they began focusing on the loan sharks. They demonstrated before banks and the residences of the executives of financial entities covering their lawns and gardens with small sharks made out of plastic demanding an end to predatory practices. From 2007 ESOP began to concentrate on the foreclosure problem and began counseling borrowers and negotiating with lenders.

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