A Dorchester woman facing eviction following the foreclosure of her home won a reprieve yesterday morning after dozens of activists gathered outside to impede a constable from removing her and her possessions.
The woman, Melonie Griffiths-Evans, had refused to pack, saying that the Lord was on her side.
A spokesman for the company that ordered the eviction, Florida-based
The community advocacy group City Life/Vida Urbana, which has pledged to prevent postforeclosure evictions, organized the protest. Two city councilors, Chuck Turner and Sam Yoon, showed up to support Griffiths-Evans. Mayor Thomas M. Menino's office said it also called the companies involved in Griffiths-Evans's mortgage to request a delay in the eviction.
Shortly after 9 a.m., a City Life organizer said the eviction had been postponed and the protesters erupted in celebration. Some chanted, "We fight, we win." Griffiths-Evans repeatedly thanked anyone she could find.
"The bankers need to know we're going to do the same thing for everyone," she said.
City Life has pledged to defend about 75 residents of other foreclosed buildings against eviction, both former owners and tenants. This is the second time the group has mobilized in response to a formal 48-hour notice of a pending eviction. The other eviction also was postponed.
"We are urging mass resistance to these evictions," said Steve Meachem, an organizer for the group. "After all these mortgage scams, the banks have no right to disrupt people's lives like this." The group wants mortgage companies to act as landlords until the properties can be sold to nonprofits, which could maintain the buildings as affordable housing.
Griffiths-Evans said she struggled from the outset to pay the mortgages on her two-family home, but fell behind last year after a series of financial problems, including the loss of a tenant and her job.
Griffiths-Evans paid $470,000 in 2004 for the two-family home on Semont Road. She made no down payment, instead using two loans arranged by Zeus Funding LLC, a mortgage brokerage based in Londonderry, N.H., but active in Dorchester. Zeus has since been ordered by the attorney general's office to stop making loans in Massachusetts.
Three years later, she defaulted on the larger loan. The home was foreclosed in November by
The constable hired to serve the eviction, whom the mayor's office identified as Russell Castagna, did not return calls seeking comment.
Another advocacy group, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, said it would protest Ocwen's role in foreclosures and evictions today outside the offices of Credit Suisse in downtown Boston. Credit Suisse, like U.S. Bancorp, is the trustee for pools of loans serviced by Ocwen. An ACORN representative said U.S. Bancorp had already agreed to meet with the group to discuss Ocwen's conduct.
Binyamin Appelbaum can be reached at bappelbaum@globe.com.
