HUD Charges New York Corporation and Associated Entities for Targeting Black Caribbean Homeowners in Fraudulent Mortgage Scam

HUD has charged multiple entities and individuals related to the Homeowner Assistance Services of New York (HASNY) with housing discrimination for perpetrating a scheme to deceive distressed homeowners into forfeiting title to their homes. HUD’s charge alleges that HASNY – plus six individuals, Springfield Realty of New York, Inc., Martin Development and Management, LLC, Launch Development, LLC, 272 Milford Street, LLC, Advill Capital, LLC, and Petermark II, LLC - targeted New York City homeowners in violation of the Fair Housing Act. Read the Charge. 

The Charge, filed on behalf of seven homeowners, alleges that HASNY and its associates targeted the homeowners for fraudulent mortgage and foreclosure prevention assistance by filing illegitimate liens and using telemarketing to convince homeowners to engage with HASNY for refinance assistance. After the homeowners accepted their offer of assistance, they used false promises of legal assistance, reassurances, and outright lies to convince the homeowners to sign documents that unknowingly sold their homes to Martin Development, LLC and Launch Development, LLC, which resulted for most forced them to vacate their homes. HASNY’s actions were disproportionately concentrated in neighborhoods which had a high majority of persons of color, especially Blacks and of Caribbean descent. They also used “affinity marketing” to gain the trust of elderly, vulnerable, and distressed homeowners by having telemarketers use their shared national origin and cultural practices to build trust with the homeowners. 

The U.S. Department of Justice previously criminally charged 3 of the men, as well as several other HASNY employees, with bank and wire fraud crimes from the conduct alleged in the Charge. Two respondents pleaded guilty and one was convicted after a jury trial and later disbarred. 

A U. S. Administrative Law Judge will hear HUD’s Charge unless any party elects to have the case heard in federal district court. If an administrative law judge finds, after a hearing, that discrimination has occurred, the judge may impose civil penalties and/or award damages to the homeowners for their losses as a result of the discrimination, injunctive relief, other equitable relief, as well as payment of attorney fees. In addition, the judge may impose civil penalties to vindicate the public interest. If a federal court hears the case, the judge may also award punitive damages to the homeowners. 

Read the June 13, 2023 HUD press

Affordable Housing News: 

Mortgage Assistance Program Expansion Estimated to Help More Than 1,000 Additional Marylanders Stay in Their Homes. 

Since the Homeowner Assistance Fund Program Began in 2021, the Maryland Department of Housing and Community Development (MDHCD) has assisted over 11,000 Marylanders residents behind on payments and housing costs, including 6,000 who were facing foreclosure. The Department has expanded the program to add an additional option for mortgage servicers to provide eligible homeowners with relief as interest rates have risen and affected the affordability of some loan modifications. The program now is able to fund up to six months of forward payments for eligible applicants, and is estimated to help more than 1,000 additional Marylanders. 

The Homeowner Assistance Fund offers legal assistance, loan modifications with payment of delinquent mortgages, grants to avoid displacement due to property taxes, association and water and sewer fees, and other housing related costs. So far, the program has provided more than $125 million to eligible homeowners, with an average of $17,100 of assistance for each household. No additional application is required to be considered for the new forward payment option, and the Department is also reviewing past applications to determine if those homeowners would be eligible for the forward payment option and reaching out to them to offer assistance. 

For detailed information on eligibility and to apply for assistance: homeownerassistance.maryland.gov. The HAF program was established by the American Rescue Plan Act enacted in 2021 to help homeowners experiencing financial hardship after January 21, 2020. The Maryland Department of Housing and Community Developm​ent was awarded a total of $248 million to administer through the program. 

Contact Brandi Bottalico, Office of Public Information - brandi.bottalico@maryland.gov.

 June Edition of "Fair Housing E-News"

FAIR HOUSING E-NEWS

June, 2023

Welcome to this edition of Fair Housing E-News! This newsletter is produced by the GBCHRB

as a public service. More info/resources: http://www.gbchrb.org. Just a few of the headlines are:

NLIHC’s Out Of Reach 2023: The High Cost Of Housing Shows Rents are Moving Further out of Reach for Low-Income Renters As Pandemic-Era Benefit Programs Expire.

Read the NLIHC Summary of its 2023 Out of Reach report.

Out of Reach 2023 is available at: https://nlihc.org/oor.

Study Finds Baltimore Children who moved from High-Poverty to Low-Poverty Areas had Improved Asthma. Read the May 16, 2023 Baltimore Sun article.

Maryland Finds Erie Insurance Illegally Rejected Baltimore Auto Customers in Minority Neighborhoods. Read the June 6, 2023 Baltimore Sun article. Read the June 1, 2023 Baltimore Banner article.

Justice Department Secures Over $3 Million Redlining Settlement Involving ESSA Bank & Trust in Philadelphia. www.justice.gov/fairhousing.

Federal Housing Administration Launches 30 New Resources to Remove Language Barriers in Chinese, Korean, Spanish, Tagalog, and Vietnamese for Borrowers.

Read the June 13, 2023 HUD release.

KeyBank & Capital One Lose Their Access To New York City’s Business. "NYC Regulator Halts City Deposits at Key Bank, Capital One," Banking Dive, May 26, 2023. NCRC Just News/ May 25, 2023 Press Release.

To read this issue of Fair Housing E-News: fhnews2023jun.pdf.

Contact the GBCHRB for free Fair Housing training.

GBCHRB

P. O. Box 66180

Baltimore, Maryland 21239-6180

http://www.gbchrb.org

443.347.3701

 Book Review

A Lucky Child by Thomas Buergenthal

Elie Wiesel, fwd. Little, Brown and Company: 2009. Pp xvi, 228. $24.99.

This memoir by the late Thomas Buergenthal (1934-2023), a Judge in the International Court of Justice in The Hague as well as in several other human rights courts, tells how his survival of Auschwitz which he entered at age 10 after surviving two ghettos and a labor camp influenced his long career as a stellar human rights lawyer and advocate. As the Amazon book description concludes: "A Lucky Child is a book that demands to be read by all."

"It was more than luck and the good for­tune of his ​“Aryan” fea­tures that enabled him to sur­vive the war — it was his strength, wis­dom, and enor­mous faith that he would one day sur­vive and be reunit­ed with his parents. Amaz­ing­ly, Thomas was reunit­ed with his moth­er short­ly after the war and then moved to the Unit­ed States and began a career as lawyer and then as a judge. He has ded­i­cat­ed his career to fight­ing against the human rights vio­la­tions that he expe­ri­enced as a child."

*****

Sources:

(1) Amazon book description.

(2) Read the book review in ReformJudaism.org.

(3) Read the December 22, 2011 Jewish Book Council book review.

(4) Photo courtesy of Amazon.com.

 Obituary: 

Thomas Buergenthal, Human Rights Lawyer, 89

Buergenthal was an international law jurist and human rights defender who was as a boy one of the youngest survivors of the Nazi concentration camps of Auschwitz and Birkenau, as well as a three-day Nazi death march to Sachsenhausen, Germany. He had a major role in establishing international jurisprudence's framework, stemming from U.N. declarations since the 1960s often called the “International Bill of Human Rights.” In 1992, the U. S. ratified the core document, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. 

As a justice of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (1979-1991), Buergenthal judged cases about allegations of rights abuses by U.S.-allied governments in El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras against leftist guerrillas and their supporters. One case, the disappearance of suspected government opponents in Honduras, led to new interpretations of the burden of proof. Buergenthal and the other judges decided that it could consider the overall pattern of disappearances, setting a “rebuttable presumption” of government involvement. Authorities would now have to prove they had no role in a specific incident, rather than relying on a lack of evidence to exonerate them. In 1993, Buergenthal was part of a U.N. commission that found Salvadoran military officers responsible for so-called “dirty war” crimes, including the killing of Archbishop Oscar Romero in 1980. 

Buergenthal was vice chairman of the Claims Resolution Tribunal, which examined requests made by the families of Holocaust victims seeking assets deposited in Swiss banks until 1945. Tens of millions of dollars were estimated to be in accounts hidden from heirs by Swiss banking laws. He also wrote a memoir A Lucky Child: A Memoir of Surviving Auschwitz as a Young Boy (See Interesting Books in this issue). He also served as a judge at the International Court of Justice, honorary president of the American Society of International Law (2001-2009), and as a law professor. 

*****

Sources:

Read an article about Buergenthal in the Holocaust Encyclopedia.

Read the June 3, 2023 Washington Post obituary.

Read the June 2, 2023 New York Times obituary.

Photo courtesy of the Holocaust Encyclopedia of the U. S. Holocaust Memorial Museum.

 Free Immigrant & Refugee Resource Fair

About the Fair MIMA and Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service (LIRS) are teaming up to bring you this one-day event bringing together resources targeted for Baltimore City's immigrant and refugee communities. Join us to find resources like healthcare services, immigration legal services, food access, public benefit navigation, health insurance, community organizing, schools, ESOL classes and more. There is limited parking available and bus lines run nearby (see flyer attached for list of bus lines). WHAT: LIRS and MIMA Immigrant and Refugee Resource Fair WHEN: Saturday, June 17th from 11am-2pm WHERE: Christ Lutheran Inner Harbor Church (701 S. Charles Street, Baltimore MD 21230) Check out our Facebook event for continuing updates and to let us know you're attending! We need volunteers! We are also looking for volunteers to provide language support/interpretation at the event. We are particularly looking for volunteers who speak Spanish, French, Swahili, Lingala, Chinese (Mandarin), Korean, Amharic, Tigrinya, Arabic, Dari, Pashto, Nepalese or Ukrainian. Please sign up here if you are interested in volunteering to provide language support for fair attendees.

If you would like access to high-quality copies of these flyers, please check our MIMA Facebook page or check the MIMA website. Did you enjoy reading this message? Follow us to receive more! To sign up to receive our monthly update via email or suggest announcements to include, please contact mima@baltimorecity.gov. Mayor's Office of Immigrant Affairs 100 N. Holliday Street, Room 250 Baltimore, MD 21202 410-396-8056

 Free Maryland Seminar on Sexual Orientation, Gender Identity, & Expression Law

To register, click HERE   For reasonable accommodation requests, please contact: mccr.admin@maryland.gov no later than one week prior to the event.   Victim of Discrimination? Training & Partnerships HOME      ABOUT MCCR      SERVICES      PUBLICATIONS      EVENTS      PRESS      CONTACT US

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