Community Groups Protest Proposed Wall Street Bailout

Group Wants Bailout For Struggling Homeowners

POSTED: 3:45 pm EDT September 23, 2008
UPDATED: 4:06 pm EDT September 23, 2008

PITTSBURGH -- Protestors took to the streets of downtown Pittsburgh on Tuesday, upset over the federal government's $700 billion bailout plan for the financial industry.

A group known as the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now or ACORN says lawmakers should instead focus on local homeowners.

Rallies similar to this one were held in cities throughout the United States. In Pittsburgh, demonstrators marched in front of the Federal Reserve building on Grant Street. Organizers like Mary Ellen Hayden said they want to send a message to Washington.

"We really want to see the troubled borrowers that are losing their houses get refinancing, get their loans rewritten, all these predatory practice. If the federal government had regulated these people in the first place they wouldn't have come into our neighborhoods and ripped us off," Hayden said.

ACORN spent the day handing out literature calling on lawmakers to not only help lending agencies, but also homeowners struggling to get by or facing foreclosure.

"Stressful, very stressful. You can't sleep at night, you worry about it. You get a better attitude on it and you think it's all going to work out, and it doesn't work out. And you go back and you wonder who made these loans?" Debra Morris, a South Hills homeowner said.

Morris is not alone. She joins millions of others in the same situation. ACORN leaders said they hope lawmakers will require financial institutions to help troubled homeowners restructure their mortgage so they can save their home.

A problem people like Daria Dillion, who's lived in her home for 13 years, said she never saw coming.

"You never, ever think it's going to happen to you but it does... A knock comes to the front door and you don't know if you're being thrown out or not. It's terrifying," Dillion said.

Organizers from ACORN said they want homeowners who are struggling to contact their local congressperson. In the meantime, they say more rallies like Tuesdays will be held in the near future.

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