ng we knew was morally wrong and began to organize our family, friends and anyone willing and able to help.
Our family started to find ways to educate our community; not just about our unjust situation but the larger systems playing into it and a barricade was built in front of our home as an artistic display of resistance.
Our battle with the bank however extends past just these 50 days to five years ago when the bank adjusted our monthly payment rates from 3,900 to 4,500. Even with various members of our family contributing to the payments, the dramatic and sudden increase made it impossible to add into our budgets. When we called to ask for assistance, we were informed by Bank of America that the only people that were receiving assistance with their loans were homeowners who were behind on payments. We were painted into a corner where if we sought assistance- our only option was to allow ourselves to purposely fall behind on payments.
During our five years of negotiations, we applied for four modifications and had all of them denied based on reasons that we knew were illegitimate. Also within the last five years, we have seen the bank implement specific practices to gain ammunition to slander our name and delegitimize our ownership of our home. For example; during this 5year period of negotiations, every time our family wanted to make payments towards the loan, the bank refused to take them. The bank later used this lack of payments to justify the auction of our home from underneath us. While not taking payment may seem very strange, we later learned that this is a very common practice that many banks use during foreclosure processes. We also learned that there have been various fraudulent affidavits associated with the rejection of our loan modification paperwork. To put it bluntly, the bank wants us to lose our home because the profit they stand to make from collecting the insurance they leveraged against us is more than the payments we would be making. Again- both of these are common practices that banks even now are continuing to use with countless families across our country.
After our latest modification request was denied; the eviction notice was immediate despite the fact that our family submitted a QWR (Qualified Written Request) for proof of a written title that is still being investigated.
No family should ever have to lose their home because of the immoral and dishonest bank practices that our government continues to allow. This action has always been about educating each other. About empowering each other to stand up and knowing that we will have a community to stand with us. Despite what you think or how you have been told to feel- you can do something. We are peaceful, we are non-violent but we refuse to go down quietly. It is becoming increasingly necessary to build a culture of resistance. An organized community is a force to be reckoned with and that is why our family is being criminalized.
This is the first home that our family has been able to own. Like many others, our parents came here as immigrants from Mexico, for the opportunity for advancement, stability, honest work and greater accessibility to education for us, their children. With our parents only being able to get minimum wage jobs, renting was the only option for housing that our family had. The rent we paid was often too much for what we had and despite how long we had been living in a place, it never really felt like ours. Our family worked hard for what we had and we were patient to get the things we felt were important. When we were finally able to afford to buy our own home, we saw it as the culmination of the decades of rent we had been contributing to other property owners.
The media, the banks, and the corrupt politicians want the public to judge us and forget that our story is not an uncommon story. Stand with us today, and the millions of families that continue to be affected by this crisis, so that we can stand with you tomorrow.
Please come and see for yourself that first and foremost we are a family trying to keep our home. Speak to our elders and understand our history. See our children and think about how this situation will affect them most of all even though they have little power to change or really understand the circumstances. How are we suppose to explain to our children that our government is allowing a bank to take away a place they have always known as their own, because of predatory lending practices that many in office helped to draft. The more time our family spends in this country and the harder we work, the more we understand that the American dream no longer exists and has not existed for a very long time. For some, it may have never existed at all. How do we tell our children that and not stand up to try to change these circumstances?
Our home still stands at:
14620 Leadwell St.
Van Nuys, CA 91405
If you cannot come, then please show your support by flooding the phone lines of the following people and demand that our family be treated with the fairness and respect that any person deserves.
Bank of America numbers. Ask them to act in good faith and negotiate a fair modification with
the Hernandez family.
Debra Haber
877- 471- 4367 ext.034581
Karen Arakelian
213- 345- 2684
You can call the Sheriffs, too. Call as a supporter and ask them to save our resources for real criminals, not for putting families on the streets.
Main number
323- 526- 5541
Van Nuys Branch (West Bldg.)
818- 374- 2511
Van Nuys Branch (East Bldg.)
818- 374- 2121Stand with us as we demand that the bank resumes negotiations for a fair modification within a reasonable time frame. Stand with us and help give us strength as we continue to be submitted to acts of intimidation by the police.

With faith in our community and hope for a better tomorrow,
-La Familia Hernandez