A significant number of families facing home loss by agents of lenders are America’s senior citizens; these individuals are the very people who have spent 40 or 50 years working and paying taxes to underwrite our society, including underwriting the recent bank bailouts. Few things are worse than losing your home, particularly one you have been in for decades. Emotional abuse also includes “Verbal assaults, threats or intimidation” and “subjecting an individual to fear, isolation or serious emotional distress.”

One of Marin Family’s Action’s members (image right) was taken from her home, handcuffed and sent to the Marin County jail. This woman is A 74-year-old California native with degrees in economics and welfare from University of California at Berkeley. No notice was given. Earlier that week her pacemaker was replaced.

When asked what it was like to be in jail, she said she was “stunned as the reality of my circumstance had not yet sunk in.” Because her pacemaker had been replaced earlier that week, stress was to be avoided. Her arms were already bruising from rough handling and handcuffs “All I could do is wait. There is nothing to do, no means to go to the bathroom. I sat handcuffed.” The nurse checked her pulse: 195 over 97, pronounced the pulse rate “okay” and asked if the bruises on Mary’s arms were “needle marks.”

We are focused on elder abuse as relates to loss of one’s home through predatory lending, through lack of cooperation with homeowners with regard to loan modifications, home improvement scams, and illegal fees paid to individuals professing to be able to help with loan modifications or restructures. Financial Elder Abuse includes the theft or embezzlement of money or any other property from an elder. It can be as simple as taking money from a wallet and as complex as manipuating a victim into turning over property to an abuser.

This form of abuse can be devastating because an elder victim’s life savings can disappear in the blink of an eye, leaving them unable to provide for their needs and afraid of what an uncertain tomorrow will bring.

In their 39-page guide, The State of California is quite clear on definitions of elder abuse. This may be important if you or someone in your family is a senior citizen and is being subject to harrassment by lenders — this includes loan modification agreements that are ignored by lenders and lenders’ agents.

California has designated $25 million to help senior individuals for elder abuse:

Marin County offices are at: Adult Services, 10 North San Pedro Road, Suite 1002, San Rafael, CA 94903, Tel: (415) 499-7118 Fax: (415) 499-6465, 24 Hour Hotline: (415) 507-2774.

Anyone age 65 or older, who is suspected of being abused or neglected, is eligible for APS without regard to income. If you suspect that an elderly or dependent adult is being abused or neglected, call Marin County Adult Protective Services, 24 hours/day, at 507-2774. All calls are handled confidentially. When necessary, APS will keep confidential the name of the person who reported the suspicions.

Looks Like War From Here. Where is the Hue and Cry?

America’s working men, women — and often children — shaped this country into the great place that it is (was?).

Why aren’t we being protected? How did American tax-paying citizens become “the enemy” and “inconvenient” on our own soil? (Image: Paul Revere warning of impending doom.)

We are horrified when people around the world are forced from their homes for any reason, yet Americans are again being “internally displaced” (meaning having to move within our own country); we are evicted by uniformed officers carrying weapons, and our displacement rivals or exceeds international numbers. One noted economist suggested that we are turning into a third-world country.

The UN Refugee Agency reports that 80 percent of the world’s refugees are in developing nations, as are the vast majority of internally displaced people. Has America turned into a developing nation? (Image: Tent city in Sacramento, California)

• 2010, United States of America: More than 20 million people displaced in the last few years through foreclosures (more than 10 million homes, average 2.4 people per home);
• 2009, World: 42 million people uprooted (not counting the 20 million people displaced in the United States noted above);
• 2009, Columbia: In 2008, 380,000 forced off their farms by guerillas, paramilitaries or drug traffickers; by 2009, Columbia had one of the world’s largest internally displaced populations, with estimates of 3 million;
• 2009, Sri Lanka: 300,000 war-displaced Tamils forced into camps (Image: Tent city in Africa);
• 2009, Yemen: 150,000 people fled fighting;
• 2009, Sudan: 250,000 displaced;
• 2009, Georgians: 192,000 displaced (Moscow, Reuters);
• 2008, World: 4.6 million from armed conflicts;
• 2008, World: 20 million displaced because of natural disasters such as flooding, earthquakes and storms.

Unfortunately, History Does Repeat Itself

Isn’t this time to stand up and be heard. "Conditional displacement" (meaning "forced by circumstances, often at gunpoint, to move"):

• 1945-1952, more than 250,000 Jewish "displaced" persons lived in camps and urban centers in Germany, Austria and Italy
• 1860-on: 2.6 million Irish left Ireland.
• 1911-1929, Mexican Revolution: Approximately one million.

"If you are not part of the solution, you are part of the problem." — Eldridge Cleaver

“All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” — Edmund Burke

"Justice is itself the great standing policy of civil society; and any eminent departure from it, under any circumstances, lies under the suspicion of being no policy at all.” — Edmund Burke

From Leo Tolstoy:

"Government is an association of men who do violence to the rest of us."

"I sit on a man’s back, choking him and making him carry me, and yet assure myself and others that I am very sorry for him and wish to ease his lot by all possible means – except by getting off his back."

"In all history there is no war which was not hatched by the governments, the governments alone, independent of the interests of the people, to whom war is always pernicious even when successful."

"In the name of God, stop a moment, cease your work, look around you."