I posted last week about going to stand with protesters outside someone’s home because the sheriff was due to evict her. I was thrilled to learn that the effort worked, at least for now. Here’s a report from Ulysses Hillard, a young activist at the Unitarian church who was there:

“This past Thursday I woke up punishingly early (for me) and drove over to West Oakland… All in all about 20 to 30 people gathered. We put made signs and put up banners and we listened to the homeowner tell her story.

“The short version is that she bought the house three years ago at $550,000. The same person acted as seller, realtor, and loan broker. She had no job at the time, no experience with home ownership, did not know there was anything wrong with the arrangement, and little idea how horrible a situation she’d put herself in.

“She got into trouble after six months and started asking for help and got nothing from the lender, First Franklin. Her loan has since changed hands at least twice. The current lender’s plan was to kick her out on the street and re-sell the house for $140,000. In other words, their plan was to create another ghost-house in West Oakland when they could have somebody living in the house taking care of it by negotiating with the owner for a modified loan at that same $140,000. Instead, they intended to send the sheriff’s department out to evict her that morning.

“Somebody posted the phone number for the lender and we all started calling. We got kicked around through about seven phone numbers all over the country before we fond the person in charge of the loan. I was the first person to get through to him and he was almost polite as I told him what was up. Thanks to the right wing hijinks during the election I think, the word “ACORN” seems to inspire a real reaction now. He got less polite as more people called.

“At about 8:15 word came around that the sheriffs had been called off. We had done it! We saved her home for at least one day. Imagine being able to do such a thing before even getting into the office. It was quite a morning. With hope and faith,” Ulysses. (he also took the photo).