4/27 Hold Big Banks Accountable! Join TT for a rally and march to the Wells Fargo Annual Shareholder Meeting

RSVP on facebook and contact andy@tenantstogether.org if you plan to attend this event!

April 27, 2010, 12:00 Noon to 3 p.m.

March starts at Justin Herman Plaza (Embarcadero and Market) in downtown San Francisco. Rally outside the shareholder meeting at the Merchants Exchange Building, 465 California Street.

On Tuesday, April 27, more than 1,000 people from faith, labor and community groups will march through the Financial District to Wells Fargo’s annual shareholder meeting, where a delegation will address the bank’s top executives and demand changes to corporate practices that have bankrupted families and public coffers while enriching those who crashed the economy.

The action is the first in a week of mobilizations for financial reform across the country, including an April 28th action at the Bank of America’s shareholder meeting in Charlotte, North Carolina and a national protest April 29 on Wall Street.

California has been crippled by banks’ foreclosures. The state had 632,573 foreclosures in 2009 alone. In addition to homeowners, more than half a million tenants have been evicted from foreclosed properties through no fault of their own. The state budget faces an estimated $15 billion gap, while local governments are losing more than $13 billion from declining property tax revenues.

Wells Fargo was one of the top three mortgage lenders who did subprime and predatory loans in California during the housing bubble. See National People’s Action’s 2009 report “The Truth About Wells Fargo: Racial Disparities in Lending Practices” (posted at www.showdowninamerica.org) for more info about the bank’s history of targeting people of color for high-cost loans.

We are calling on Wells to be accountable for its irresponsible lending practices by stopping foreclosures and tenant evictions, ending race-based predatory lending and doing their part to create jobs and credit access for a fair economic recovery,” said Domingo Delgadillo, community leader with Contra Costa Interfaith Supporting Community Organization and the PICO National Network.

Participating organizations:
AFL-CIO, Alameda Labor Council, Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment, California Labor Federation, California Reinvestment Coalition, Causa Justa: Just Cause, Contra Costa Interfaith Supporting Community Organization, Contra Costa Labor Council, North Bay Labor Council, Napa Solano Labor Council, National People’s Action, PICO National Network, Right to the City, Sacramento Labor Council, SEIU, South Bay Labor Council, and Tenants Together.

RSVP on facebook and contact andy@tenantstogether.org if you plan to attend this event!