Foreclosure Protests at D.C. Offices Reflect Trend

Dozens of demonstrators with the community group ACORN barged into a District office that auctions foreclosed homes in upscale Chevy Chase yesterday and shut it down for an hour, chanting "No sales here."

In Rye, N.Y., and Greenwich, Conn., on Sunday, more than 300 people converged on the homes of two bank executives who opposed modifying loans to help homeowners and barraged the men and their neighbors with slogans.

And in Boston, Detroit, Memphis and Cleveland, protesters against foreclosures have gathered in recent months to confront bankers amid the worst housing crisis in three generations, demanding a moratorium on foreclosures until homeowners get a bailout similar to the one given to banks.

Many of the protests and acts of civil disobedience appear to be unrelated, and some organizers said yesterday they were unaware that a coalition of grass-roots groups called the Bail Out the People Movement is planning what they hope will be a massive demonstration on Wall Street on April 4.

Wall Street is being targeted because banks offered many people exotic loans that carried high interest rates they could not afford, said Larry Holmes, a coalition spokesman. Like other groups, the coalition is demanding a moratorium on foreclosures.

"I think it's the first national march," Holmes said. He acknowledged that the coalition is in the early stages of negotiations with New York police for a permit to march, and he could not say how many people were expected to show. But, said Holmes, there is strong interest among New York groups, and "we have commitments from groups in the Midwest and mid-Atlantic states."

In a crisis in which one home in the United States is foreclosed on every 13 seconds, according to the nonpartisan Center for Responsible Lending, Holmes said the mood among homeowners he has encountered is "disbelief evolving into rage."

ACORN, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, is not listed among the 25 groups slated to join the Wall Street march. But the group, which became a focus of controversy in last year's presidential race, has organized in low-income communities for decades and has held plenty of foreclosure protests of its own.

In Queens, N.Y., members charged into an auction room where 130 houses were being sold.

In the District yesterday, as startled office workers gathered and stared outside Alex Cooper Auctioneers at Wisconsin Avenue and Jenifer Street NW, about 50 demonstrators forced a pair of workers to retreat into an office, lock the door and call for help on mobile phones.

The protesters chanted: "Save our homes! Save our homes!" and "Bail out Main Street, not just Wall Street!"

When D.C. police moved the demonstrators out about an hour later, they went to Harvey West Auctioneers nearby and repeated the action.