subprimers deserve to lose homes?

Cinnamon lost everything in the subprime mortgage crunch and she is very angry to hear that people think she deserved to lose her home because being a poor African American mom she had no right to be a home owner in the first place.

"Bankers KNEW that rates would adjust upward and KNEW that we had no idea how to assess the impact of a 1 to 2 point increase in the mortgage rate," says Cinnamon. "This should have been spelled out clearly to us, but it was a deliberate policy not to."

"The documents banks and financial institutions prepared for subprime mortgages were written by risk-minimizing lawyers and were not designed to be easy to read and understand," says Cinnamon. "We were in no financial position to hire a lawyer, and had no reason to."

"Some of the lenders, like Fairbanks Capital, a subsidiary of PMI, the Primary Mortgage Insurance Group -- the main supplier of mortgage insurance for the first-time buyers market -- which now operates under a different name, intentionally caused late payments," says Cinnamon. "They used improper and untimely posting of mortgage payments for their customers, knowing that these poor people could not pay for any defense of the dishonest practices foisted on them."

"This company was nothing more than a foreclosure mill, adding secret late fees and $900 drive by appraisals to their customers' bills -- which had to be paid before any payments were applied to their mortgage balance," says Cinnamon. "This way, many were forced into foreclosure and public auction, and sometimes these lowlife never even bothered to inform their customers what they were doing and the poor souls, making timely payments, had their homes sold without their knowledge!"

"Sure, I understand now that 10% deposit is needed to qualify for a secure loan with low interest and that buying a house with a subprime mortgage is a bit like gambling," says Cinnamon, "but it wasn't portrayed like a gamble when we signed the dotted line."

"In suspending their usual standards, rules and due diligence the financial institutions knowingly sucked money out of poor people and told us it was okay," says Cinnamon. "We were sold on the American Dream of home ownership -- pushed by the government and the media -- and sort of believed it was our birthright."

Read more by Cinnamon on this issue:

subprime black deadbeats?

credit crunch breaks up families

lost home as well as husband