Ohio Representative Calls for Temporary Foreclosure Moratorium

""Rep. Marcy Kaptur"":http://www.kaptur.house.gov/, D-Ohio, submitted a resolution (""H.Res. 344"":http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/C?c112:./temp/~c112bKmWNX) calling for a temporary foreclosure moratorium to the House Financial Services Committee Friday.

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""[T]he United States finds its housing market in a precarious and unstable state, where homeowners' mortgage balances are routinely larger than the current value of their homes and where people are losing their homes at an alarming rate,"" Kaptur states in the resolution.

Kaptur notes that in April 2011, there were 219,000 new foreclosures, 7,300 each day. In addition, 11,000,000 homeowners are underwater or in the foreclosure process.

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She also cites the nearly 6,900,000 fewer jobs in the U.S. since the start of the recession and the April 2011 unemployment rate of 9 percent as reasons to consider the current state of the economy a national emergency.

""[M]any economists today believe that to avoid relapsing into another devastating financial crisis, a key component is the Nation's housing markets and providing necessary changes for our Nation's financial markets,"" she states.

Kaptur references a similar action taken by the state of Minnesota in the Great Depression. Declaring a state of economic emergency, the state enacted a temporary law that postponed foreclosure sales and extended mortgage redemptions.

Kaptur calls on President Obama to declare a national foreclosure emergency and adopt a nationwide moratorium on foreclosures.

""[I]n this time of instability and uncertainty, with unemployment at 9.0 percent for April 2011, a global financial system still reeling from the effects of the recession, a volatile housing market, and our Nation's citizens struggling to balance essential needs of housing, work, and nutrition, it is time that the Nation, through the action of the President of the United States, declare a national foreclosure emergency and State-by-State seek to end the foreclosure crisis,"" Kaptur stated.