Organizing and persistence works. The auction of the Bottom family home of 50 years is cancelled and Bank of America has offered them a permanent loan modification at 2% for 40 years!
Patricia Bottom Long advises other foreclosure fighters: “If you can get an advocate like Just Cause/Causa Justa to stand with you… it makes all the difference. Before that, I felt alone but when I had someone to bounce stuff off of and CJJC’s Nell [Myhand] was great with resources, I was able to speak with people who actually listened, [CA Atty. General] Kamala Harris, and [Congresswoman] Barbara Lee, (D-CA), the fact that we were able to speak to those people made all this possible.”
Patricia can now rest easy — knowing her mother will not be evicted at any moment. She can unpack the boxes stacked throughout the house as she awaited eviction of her mother at any moment.
Mrs. Vida Bottom has lived in her Oakland home for almost 50 years. Mrs. Bottom was forced by serious illness and other financial crisis to close down her restaurant business and couldn’t keep up her mortgage payments. She applied for a loan modification THREE times and on each occasion was turned down.
The loan Bank of America sold her was predatory and then they tried to foreclose and sell the home at auction.
Mrs. Bottom has since reopened her business and with her daughter appealed for help “to find a way for me to live out the rest of my years in my home.” The date of the house auction had been set for November 28, 2012.
A look at the loan documents reveal that on one day in 2008 the bank made two loans to Vida Bottom, 78-year old Black grandmother with a modest income. One loan was a $356,000 10-year balloon loan. The other was an interest-only loan for $417,000 with an adjustable rate that would start adjusting in 2013.
“It was obviously a predatory loan,” says Oakland Homeowner Clinic Coordinator Nell Myhand, who sent off a letter to B of A last week saying as much. Meanwhile, Patricia filed a complaint with the Office of Comptroller of the Currency.
On April 3, 2012, Nell wrote a letter in support of the Bottom family to Brian T. Moynihan, CEO of the Bank of America imploring him to resolve issue of an mortgage for Mrs. Vida Bottom.
On October 29, 2012 after several attempts by B of A to auction the home Nell wrote a letter to Donald Layton, CEO of Freddie Mac the investor on the loan who has the final say in whether or not a loan modification is granted insisting that he take action to correct the injustice that was being done to Mrs. Bottom.
After looking through the loan documents, Nell wrote another letter to Brian Moynihan suggesting that by a reasonable person standard the loan was predatory and that Bank of America should work with the family to help them keep the home. She stated in the letter that an unnecessary burden had been placed on the frail, 82-year-old grandmother and that it was a detriment to her health and a grave financial threat.
Says Nell, “I feel quite excited that Mrs. Bottom will be able to remain in her home. I have known her for 20 years and it was like my own mother being put out of her home at 82 years of age. I am excited that this issue is resolved and that Mrs. Bottom can live out the rest of her years in peace, and in her own home.”
Being run around by the banks took a toll on Patricia also. 
She said, “Something needs to be done in this country. We met the criteria of the hardship. It wasn’t like we had tons of money. We had severe hardship. Something is wrong when (the banks and Freddie Mac) decide to put an 82-year old woman out of her home. I felt if anyone deserved a loan modification, my mom did. I was happy we were able to find a way to allow us to stay. She added, “I will be standing with others as they fight for their homes….Don’t just accept what the Big Banks say. If you know this modification is something you deserve– then fight for it.”
The movement against Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae is growing //housingisahumanright.org/rally-against-fannie-mae-freddie-mac-in-nyc/. There have been victories across the country including in Atlanta where the Boudreaux family won a loan modification after overturning a foreclosure and now, the
Bottom family, with a reasonable loan modification.
“My mom is very, very happy. This is truly a blessing. I was working on this for two years. I would tell people who are fighting to keep their homes — go until you feel you cannot go anymore — and then go again.”
Said Vida Bottom: “All I want to do is live my last days here, and I’m pleased, I would love to have it go on down through the generations of my children.”
So… Vida Bottom will remain in her home. Why? Because we need our homes more than Fannie / Freddie or the Big Banks need one more.
There are other families who have united in a campaign to resist eviction with Freddie Mac as the investor. These are Nell Myhand, Manuel de Paz, and The Perez family; The Bottom family was included in this list but has reached a successful outcome. How? Through phone calls, emails, letter-writing, auction actions; and never giving up.
Stop the auctions, foreclosures and evictions.
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