Neighborhood Assistance Corporation of America

NACA (Neighborhood Assistance Corporation of America) is a Boston, Massachusetts (US) based, national, HUD-certified, non-profit, community advocacy organization. NACA’s primary goal is to build healthy neighborhoods nationwide through affordable and responsible home ownership. The organization was founded by Bruce Marks, a former Federal Reserve Bank of New York official, in 1988. The non-profit’s two major programs are its Purchase Program, labeled “America’s Best Mortgage”, and its Home Save Program, highlighted by NACA’s extremely popular “Save The Dream” and "American Dream" events.

Founding of NACA

Bruce Marks, NACA Founder and CEO speaking to homeowners at a NACA Save The Dream event.

NACA began in 1988 in Boston as the Union Neighborhood Assistance Corporation (UNAC). Working with Local 26 of the Hotel Workers Union, Marks adopted the labor union’s activist tactics to confront lenders who were engaged in lending practices that the two organizations considered discriminatory and predatory. The coalition eventually prevailed and created the nation’s first housing trust fund for union members, resulting in the first change to the Taft-Hartley Act in more than thirty years.

Marks’ next campaign was a four-and-a-half year battle against "second mortgage" scams that focused on Fleet Finance. The campaign resulted in the establishment of an eight billion dollar community reinvestment program and the funding of a $140 million NACA-administrated mortgage program. The program is often referred to as revolutionary because it features no down payment, no closing costs and no application fees. The program also extends debt ratios for people who do not fit conventional guidelines, and can also be applied to rehabilitation projects through NACA’s HAND (Home And Neighborhood Development) Department.^[1]

Bank Terrorism

NACA founder and CEO Bruce Marks has been quoted referring to himself as a "non-violent bank terrorist"^[2]^[3] and has used confrontational activism as a key element of NACA’s ongoing campaign to make affordable mortgages available to everyone. The organization’s efforts in persuading uncooperative financial executives have included leaking details of one bank executive’s divorce, piling furniture on the front lawn of another executive’s house to symbolize the results of foreclosure and photos of executives from mortgage firms posted on NACA’s website with the word “Predator” emblazoned across the front, sometimes even including their home phone numbers.

On October 30, 2008, 100 NACA protesters sat on the steps of government-backed mortgage finance company Fannie Mae's headquarters and demanded that the company modify loans to lower interest rates.^[4]

Marks’ fervor has led to his arrest on multiple occasions, including during a 2010 Senate Banking Committee hearing as he attempted to bring to light the false promises made by a JP Morgan Chase executive.

News report of Bruce Marks being arrested at Senate Hearing

One reputed story places Marks at the Fulton Country Courthouse in Atlanta, Georgia, attempting to halt the public auction of foreclosed homes. After repeated warnings to leave the courthouse steps, Marks was arrested by a Sherriff’s Deputy and placed in the back of a Sherriff’s Department cruiser. Before closing the door, the deputy is alleged to have said, “Sit here for a few minutes Mr. Marks and I’ll let you go. I have an appointment with one of your counselors on Tuesday.” Marks’ relentless activism has resulted in many influential political allies on both sides of the aisle; most notably Florida Congresswoman Corinne Brown and former House Banking Committee Chairman Barney Frank.^[5]

Home Purchase Program

Over the ensuing years, Marks forged agreements with major lenders including Fleet, NationsBank, First Union, CitiGroup, Countrywide Financial, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, GMAC ResCap, Chase and others. Multiple institutions committed more than $6 billion to the NACA home ownership program.^[6]

In 2004, NACA introduced its proprietary NACA-Lynx software. The web-based, paperless mortgage application and processing system allows low and moderate income borrowers to obtain fair, fixed-rate 30 year mortgages in a streamlined process. The NACA process makes a mortgage available to many who would have otherwise been victimized by predatory lenders or denied the opportunity for home ownership completely.

NACA now has approximately 40 offices across the country providing mortgage services. Homeowners begin the NACA process by attending a Home Ownership Workshop conducted by one of the local offices. There, future homeowners begin a ten-step process which includes counseling and a financial analysis to determine what the buyer can legitimately afford, house hunting and price negotiation, inspection of the house and identification of needed repairs, and even post-closing counseling to ensure a stable home ownership experience.

Home Save Program

Seeing the coming housing market crash, Marks established NACA’s Home Save Program in 2007, utilizing the agreements he had forged with major mortgage lenders to provide third-party advocacy for homeowners needing modifications of their existing unaffordable or predatory mortgages. Using a variation of their proprietary NACA-Lynx software developed for the Home Purchase Program, NACA counselors determine the legitimately affordable payment figure for homeowners and submit a restructure proposal to the lender. This includes reductions in the interest rate, as well as potential reductions of the principal amount of the loan. NACA does not charge any money for its services.^[7]

A national Home Save Counseling Center was established in Charlotte, NC in September 2008 to provide counseling and advocacy for struggling homeowners all over the country. In its first year, the staff of the center grew as the crisis ballooned. The original 30-member staff reached 600 by the center’s first anniversary.^[8]

Save the Dream and American Dream Tours

To reach and help a maximum number of suffering homeowners, the telephone and internet based Home Save Program developed its “Save The Dream Tour” concept, taking the Home Save program on the road, effectively setting up mobile servicing centers on its tour stops. The first “Save The Dream Tour” event was held July 19–23, 2008 in Washington, DC at the Capitol Hilton Hotel. More than 20,000 homeowners attended. Each event averages five days and routinely sees 30,000 homeowners seeking mortgage help.^[9]

Representatives of the major servicers who have signed agreements with NACA are also on hand at Save The Dream events, providing same-day solutions for many homeowners on-site. Major breakthroughs with government backed investors such as Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have been realized, with their representatives in attendance at Tour events also.

By the end of 2011, NACA had produced 58 “Save The Dream Tour” events, having visited especially hard-hit areas such as Chicago, Washington DC, Atlanta, South Florida and Los Angeles more than once. NACA's eleven-day “Save The Dream Tour” event in Los Angeles, California January 20–30, 2011 was the largest foreclosure prevention and mortgage modification event in U.S. history.^[10] Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa addressed homeowners, volunteers and NACA staff at the event, expressing his astonishment and appreciation for the work NACA is doing and emphatically inviting NACA back for a fourth L.A. Save The Dream Tour event.

Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa speaking to homeowners at NACA Save The Dream Event

The event even drew the attention of the Hollywood motion picture community, with an admiring film crew creating a brief documentary of the event, talking with both homeowners and NACA staff members, including CEO Bruce Marks, about their Save The Dream Event experiences.

Save The Dream Los Angeles documentary

NACA began 2012 with its first ever "American Dream Convention" January 10–15 in Atlanta, GA. Every NACA staff member from all 40 offices across the country was in attendance for three days of training, plus a massive combined "Save the Dream" and "Home Purchase" event, with live, face-to-face counseling taking place all six days.^[11] The combined event provided to be so successful that the organization renamed their tours “American Dream” events and now bring both the Home Save and Purchase programs to each event. NACA conducted a record 43 “American Dream” events during 2012, making a total of 101 events since July 2008.

2013 saw another 25 American Dream Tour events, with return visits to many cities as homeowners continued to struggle and fight foreclosure, including Los Angeles, San Francisco, Miami, Jacksonville FL, Sacramento, Washington DC, Memphis, Atlanta and Detroit.

KTLA reports long lines at LA Convention Center, April 11, 2013

With nearly 130 events conducted since 2007, NACA set a 15 event schedule for 2014, with hints that it may be the final year for the tour events as press releases and comments from Marks and other NACA spokespersons included references to an event being the final time NACA would conduct an event in a given city.

Chasing Chase

A year-long battle with JP Morgan Chase ensued after Chase, which had signed a binding contractual agreement with NACA, broke that agreement and refused to work with the Home Save program. Chase ceased attending Save The Dream events, opting to follow NACA from city to city, creating parallel events separate from NACA’s in the same city at the same time.

Undaunted, NACA fervently continued to work with Chase homeowners and engaged on its “Chasing Chase” campaign. NACA also once again engaged in its relentless activism with demonstrations at Chase headquarters in New York and even during congressional hearings where Chase executives were testifying about the mortgage crisis.

NACA protest at JP Morgan Chase headquarters

CEO of Home Lending Dave Lowman was caught red handed by Bruce Marks and a group of homeowners with Chase mortgages who approached Lowman with questions after stating to the Congressional Committee that frustrated homeowners can “come to me”. When the homeowners tried to approach Lowman after the hearing adjourned, Lowman fled the room and the very people he had just openly invited to seek his help.

Dave Lowman confronted at House Finance Committee hearing

Additionally, armed with the contract Chase had signed with them, NACA took Chase to court for breach of contract. The suit eventually went to arbitration under the oversight of Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson, who was the judge who ruled against Microsoft in the government’s anti-trust action.^[12]

NACA’s actions against Chase grew through the year-long dispute, including helping one thousand individual homeowners file lawsuits against Chase for refusal to act in good faith in modifying mortgages. NACA also encouraged Chase account holders to close their accounts and take their business elsewhere to protest the bank’s refusal to help struggling homeowners. Most notably, the village of Hempstead, NY withdrew all of its money from Chase, spearheading a statewide effort to have municipalities withdraw their money from Chase to protest excessive foreclosures.^[13]

With a massive NACA-led protest and Save The Dream event scheduled to coincide with the JP Morgan Chase Annual Meeting on May 17, 2011 in Columbus, Ohio, Bruce Marks met with Chase executives in Washington, DC on May 4, 2011 and hammered out an agreement whereby Chase would once again work closely with NACA and also attend Save The Dream events, beginning with the coming event in Columbus.

The results were almost immediate. Homeowners flocked to the Columbus event with Chase mortgages, with many receiving modifications they had been fighting for in some cases up to two years. The first success story, Sam Jimenez, had flown to Ohio all the way from California after learning of Chase’s return to the NACA process, and began the renewed relationship between NACA and Chase with an impressive solution. Ironically, the new relationship debuted with the first day of the Columbus Save the Dream event on Friday the 13th of May! The traditionally unlucky day became a day of renewed hope for Chase borrowers.

Bruce Marks welcomes Chase to Columbus event and Sam Jimenez shares his modification success

NACA Confronts HUD

In early 2011, tensions began to grow between NACA and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) over the failure of the Federal Housing Administration, HUD and the Obama Administration as a whole to adequately deal with the nation’s mortgage crisis. NACA had become openly critical about several areas where HUD had not helped homeowners.

Among them was the highly touted but ineffective Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP), also known as the Making Home Affordable plan (MHA). The program itself was fundamentally flawed, providing only short term relief for most homeowners because of a payment and interest rate that began to creep up after the first five years. In addition, the program had provided modifications to only 16% of eligible homeowners. Furthermore, half of the granted modifications were eventually cancelled, creating a true success rate of less than 8%.^[14]^[15]

Tensions grew even more as Bruce Marks lobbied for FHA to ease their requirements for granting mortgage modifications, which were the strictest and most prohibitive in the mortgage industry. Many homeowners with FHA mortgages found themselves in an impossibly difficult situation, effectively penalized for having an FHA mortgage by being denied modification under FHA’s unrealistic guidelines, when mortgages backed by other mortgage investors and insurers would qualify for modification under exactly the same circumstances.^[16]

NACA focused its criticism on HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan. NACA became openly critical of Donovan, stating that since becoming Secretary, Donovan’s interviews, speeches and other statements seemed to place emphasis on energy efficient homes, transportation related issues and even health concerns rather than preserving home ownership.

HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan Focuses On Green Communities Instead of Stopping Foreclosures

In retaliation, HUD dispatched their Inspector General’s Office to conduct a full audit of NACA in an attempt to discredit NACA and challenge NACA’s HUD certification as a counseling agency. The six-month-long, highly detailed audit backfired on HUD when the Inspector General’s report came back with zero recommendations.^[17]

HUD’s Emergency Home Loan Program (EHLP) also drew sharp criticism from NACA. The program, designed to make temporary “bridge loans” available to struggling homeowners, had one billion dollars in funding available for catching up delinquent mortgages caused by loss of income in the household. The application process was to be administrated by HUD certified counseling agencies. As the largest such organization by far, NACA had applied to HUD for an allocation of 70% of the total demand. Instead, HUD excluded NACA from the program completely.

By allocating the administration to smaller, mainly local agencies, HUD had virtually guaranteed that only a small part of the EHLP money would actually be used to save struggling homeowners from foreclosure. The start of the application period was delayed for six months, giving eligible homeowners less than a month to apply for the help. Also, program restrictions required any of the funding not used by September 30, 2011 to be returned to the federal treasury and would no longer be available to homeowners.

Seeing that thousands of homeowners would never have the chance to participate in the EHLP program, NACA launched its own campaign to encourage the members of their Home Save program to apply for the funding, sending out pre-application forms to every NACA member in the 32 states where the program applied. NACA members responded en masse, returning some 5000 applications, virtually all of them stating they would have never heard about the program had it not been for the NACA campaign.

With no direct means of submitting the applications to HUD, NACA turned to their long-time supporter and former House Financial Services Committee Chairman, Barney Frank. Frank agreed to use his influence to get the NACA generated applications in front of HUD officials and reviewed so that thousands of otherwise forsaken homeowners would be able to take advantage of the one-time opportunity.

Even with the additional thousands of applications submitted because of NACA’s efforts, the EHLP program became another example of HUD’s dismal failures and half-hearted efforts to help struggling homeowners, with only half of the allotted one billion dollars being disbursed to help troubled homeowners as Bruce Marks had predicted, while tens of thousands of other eligible homeowners remained in danger of losing their homes.^[18]

On July 20, 2011 NACA filed a lawsuit against HUD, claiming HUD’s attempt to de-certify NACA and the termination of NACA’s HUD funding were without justification and were politically motivated.^[19]

"We will continue to speak out and get our day in court so the American people can see and hear from HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan, and other current and past administration executives on why this administration has overreached in its use of grants and regulations in requiring obedience to its policies and positions," Bruce Marks said.

The suit, which was originally projected to drag on for months in the courts, was resolved within a matter of weeks. The Justice Department, serving as the defense counsel for HUD, reviewed the facts and evidence in the case, then took the unheard-of action of advising HUD that NACA was correct in the claims made in their complaint. NACA’s HUD funding was restored, their certification secured, and FHA representatives once again returned to Save the Dream events.

NACA and the Attorneys General’s Settlement

On February 9, 2012, Attorneys General from 49 states signed an agreement with five major banks, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, Chase, CitiMortgage and Ally (GMAC), reaching a $25-billion dollar settlement designed to grant principal reductions for mortgages that were underwater and provide checks of $1500 to $2000 to homeowners who had possibly been improperly foreclosed upon.^[20]

While the efforts to reach the agreement, led by Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller, had been garnering headlines for months, the final solution was almost deceptively ineffective since the vast majority of the nation’s mortgages were deliberately excluded from the deal. Bruce Marks immediately pointed out the flaws in the deal during an interview with a San Diego television station just hours after the agreement was announced by US Attorney General Eric Holder.

Bruce Marks sheds light on the minimal help coming from the Attorneys General’s settlement

Independent Foreclosure Review

As part of a consent order with federal bank regulators, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), the Office of Thrift Supervision (OTS) (independent bureaus of the U.S. Department of the Treasury), and the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System in late 2012, fourteen mortgage servicers and their affiliates began identifying customers who were part of a foreclosure action on their primary residence during the period of January 1, 2009 to December 31, 2010. The Independent Foreclosure Review (IFR) provided homeowners the opportunity to request an independent review of their foreclosure process. If the review finds that financial injury occurred because of errors or other problems during their home foreclosure process, the customer may receive compensation or other remedy.

NACA, fearing this would be the same sort of high-talk but low-results program that other government efforts had become, started working with the regulators to help register those who qualified for the review process. An IFR Task Force was set up to help NACA members and others register for the review process. The Task Force used a dedicated phone number established for the purpose to interview and register thousands for the review process, helping to avoid the same sort of debacle that had occurred with the EHLP program.

In January 2013, with less than 20% of the more than 500,000 review requests completed, 13 mortgage servicers reached an agreement with federal bank regulators that ended the Independent Foreclosure Review for those servicers participating in the settlement, including Aurora, Bank of America, Citibank, Goldman Sachs, HSBC, JPMorgan Chase, Morgan Stanley, MetLife Bank, PNC, Sovereign, SunTrust, U.S. Bank, and Wells Fargo and their affiliates. Ally/GMAC joined onto the settlement in July, 2013 with the Independent Foreclosure Review process continuing only for Everbank and OneWest.^[21]

Instead of individual reviews as originally agreed upon, the settlement created a $3.6 billion fund to compensate borrowers for improper foreclosure practices, ranging from wrongful foreclosures to lost documents. The reviews were replaced with homeowners being lumped into twelve broad categories, with payments ranging from $300 to a maximum of $125,000, depending on the category into which each loan was presumed to have fallen. A vast majority ended up in the bottom category, receiving no more than $500, with most only getting the minimum $300.

USA Today quoted Bruce Marks’ expression of outrage over the now-gutted settlement: "It's outrageous. People were clearly expecting more than $300." The article also noted that the original process “would have provided more insight into foreclosure errors than is known now.” Marks also pointed out that the IFR process "was going in the right direction. They were going to find harm and provide restitution." Instead, just as before the original settlement was announced, borrowers who believe they were harmed were left to fight for themselves.^[22]

Taking on the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau

The original IFR project proved to have very tight limits on whose applications for review would and would not be accepted, even before the settlement that devastated the program. Tens of thousands of homeowners who had contacted NACA after being financially harmed by their lender were denied the opportunity to have their loans reviewed because of the exceptionally strict requirements.

NACA turned to the newly formed Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, seeking to have more than 60,000 files that had been denied the opportunity to undergo the Independent Foreclosure Review examined by the CFPB instead. The agency and its Acting Director, Richard Cordray, turned away the complaints, refusing to investigate the thousands of claims of wrongful acts by mortgage lenders. The agency claimed to have a limited capacity which made it impossible to deal with the huge volume of files. Later, the CFPB would also try to shift blame to Congress with the assertion that they had not been given the specific authority to deal with individual consumers’ grievances, effectively making a lie of the very name of the agency.

Appalled by the CFPB’s open refusal to abide by its own established process, plus its lack of urgency in putting regulations into effect to prevent predatory lending and unnecessary foreclosures, NACA opted to take the issue directly to Washington and confront the CFPB and Director Cordray about their failure to protect homeowners.

On February 11, 2013, a group of more than one thousand protesters, led by NACA Founder and CEO Bruce Marks, converged on CFPB headquarters in Washington, a mere two blocks from the White House. Many of the protesters wore sandwich boards listing the names of denied home owners from all fifty states. The crowd not only packed the lobby of CFPB headquarters, but completely encircled the building in the peaceful protest, effectively shutting down the agency.

Along with the sandwich boards, the group brought in boxes filled with thousands more complaints against lenders, in addition to the more than 60,000 NACA had already given to the CFPB.

After demanding a meeting with CFPB Acting Director Richard Cordray, a bureau representative came to the lobby some forty minutes later in an attempt to brush off Marks and the protesters, claiming “Director Cordray isn’t available right now. I’ll be happy to take your request. We will try to do our best to get a meeting with you.”

Marks’ simply responded, “Well, we can stay here, we can wait. We’ve got a lot of people here, so we can wait to see what his schedule is and see if it’s important enough that he deals with the actual homeowners.”

DC Police showed up en masse moments later, including helmeted officers and canine units. One officer threatened to arrest Bruce Marks on felony charges, to which a grinning Marks replied, “I’ve been here before.”

Fate appeared to take a role in proving the peaceful but resolute nature of the group’s action when a legitimate medical emergency happened inside CFPB headquarters. When paramedics arrived to attend to a CFPB staff member who had taken ill, the group cleared a path for the paramedics without a single word of direction from the police. The paramedics entered and exited the building as quickly as if the sidewalk and lobby had been empty instead of filled with demonstrators.

After finally recognizing that neither stalling nor police intimidation would deter Marks and the group, CFPB officials finally agreed to meet with Marks and a representative group of homeowners. In an impromptu press conference after the meeting, the NACA CEO said that the CFPB still claimed to have “operational issues” but would commit to reviewing the files that had been submitted.

Three days later, Cordray and other regulators testified before the Senate Banking Committee. Once again, a group led by Marks filled every seat in the hearing room, with an even larger group lined up in the hallway. At the conclusion of the hearing, Marks was finally able to speak face to face with Cordray. Cordray whispered that the only thing that would be accomplished by attacking CFPB is embarrassing and hurting the agency. Marks asked what the point of the agency is if it’s not standing up for the homeowners out there? Cordray finally relented, said the agency would start working with NACA and that he appreciated NACA’s passion for its mission.

A NACA spokesperson was cautiously optimistic about the events, saying that while it appeared that progress had been made, NACA would not hesitate to engage in other advocacy actions if the CFPB continued to not meet its obligations.

CFPB REFUSES TO HELP AT-RISK HOMEOWNERS (NACA vs CFPB)

A Pleasant Surprise for SoCal Scam Victims

In July of 2013, NACA came to the rescue of hundreds of Southern California homeowners who had fallen victim to a mortgage modification scam. A company called First One Lending had charged homeowners thousands of dollars for foreclosure prevention services they never received.

The company had also falsely claimed an affiliation with NACA, and on that basis, NACA sued First One on behalf of the homeowners under the Lanham Act.^[23] NACA won the suit and received a substantial damage award from First One. NACA then used the money to give a full refund to the scammed homeowners during a ceremony at NACA’s Los Angeles office.

NACA recovers money for scammed homeowners

Wealth Building Home Loan

A major breakthrough in mortgage lending occurred on September 8th, 2014, when Bruce Marks conducted a press conference along with Edward Pinto of the American Enterprise Institute’s International Center on Housing Risk just prior to the opening of the American Mortgage Conference in Raleigh, NC. ^[24]

The pair used the occasion to announce the development of an exceptional new mortgage product, the “Wealth Building Home Loan”. The loan, initially to be offered to NACA members through Bank of America, was a 15-year loan instead of the traditional 30-year mortgage product. Additionally, the WBHL incorporated the NACA features of having no down payment, no closing costs and a beginning interest rate that was already below market rate. More surprisingly, the WBHL offered an accelerated interest rate buy-down program in which paying one point (1% of the mortgage amount) would reduce the interest rate by one-half percent, twice that of the 30-year NACA loan and four times the buy-down allowed by many banks.

The Wealth Building Home Loan

The beginning rate for the WBHL would be .75% below NACA’s 30-year rate, and with the increased buy-down capability, the interest rate could potentially be bought down to virtually zero. This would allow nearly all of the monthly mortgage payment to go toward principal, building equity and personal wealth much more rapidly than a 30-year loan. After just seven years of the 15-year term, the homebuyer would have over 40% equity in the home, even if there were no appreciation in the value of the home.^[25]

Marks and Pinto met as members of a panel at the 2014 Color of Wealth Summit in Washington, DC. With NACA largely categorized as a politically Progressive organization and AEI considered Conservative, Marks and Pinto presented predictably differing viewpoints on the topics discussed by the panel. A later conversation revealed the two had more in common than either had anticipated and their differences were rooted in differing perspectives instead of different objectives. Both were concerned with promoting home ownership, especially for low and moderate income families. Marks was focused on stable and responsible affordability while Pinto’s view focused on building personal wealth and net worth more efficiently than the typical 30-year loan provided.

Recognizing that they in fact had a common goal, the pair challenged themselves to create a new mortgage product that satisfied both perspectives. Over the next few months, the details of the WBHL were worked out and Bank of America signed on as servicer for the new, potentially game-changing mortgage product. Within a month, NACA’s second lending partner, CitiMortgage, joined the program as well.

Also in attendance at the press conference were Anthony and Theresa Smith from Charlotte, NC, recipients of the very first Wealth Building Home Loan.

Social Media and NACA Radio

NACA Radio

City of license	Los Angeles, California and Charlotte, North Carolina
Webcast	Listen Live
Website

In late 2010 and early 2011, NACA began the expansion of its outreach efforts into social media and other web-based mass media.

The establishment of a Facebook presence under NACA’s full name Neighborhood Assistance Corporation of America and a Twitter presence @NACAEvents expanded NACA’s reach to the social media, and provided the organization’s growing following with a new real-time means of following Save The Dream events.

More recent additions to NACA's social media outreach include pages on Google Plus and Pinterest. NACA's web based media efforts are not only helping the organization spread their message, but open new channels of communication for their members as well.

During NACA’s record-setting Los Angeles Save The Dream event, CEO Bruce Marks appeared as a guest on the internet-based radio program “Combat Radio” on LA Talk Radio hosted by Ethan Dettenmaier, who also happened to be a member of a film crew producing a documentary about the event and who had himself been helped through NACA's efforts.

Marks’ appearance on the program, discussing NACA’s efforts in LA and especially their “Chasing Chase” campaign, led to dozens of listeners immediately closing their Chase accounts and moving to other banks in protest of Chase’s refusal to abide by their contract with NACA and failure to help homeowners in general.

Seeing the power of the new medium, Marks quickly set up an agreement with Dettenmaier to create a new show on LA Talk Radio simply called “NACA Radio”, a weekly, one hour program discussing NACA’s American Dream events, highlighting upcoming dates, showcasing success stories from past events, stressing NACA’s ongoing advocacy efforts and discussing news stories relevant to the mortgage crisis.

Dettenmaier agreed to host the program, and veteran NACA counselor and negotiator Tim Trumble, a 30-year broadcasting veteran before joining NACA, was quickly recruited to serve as co-host and co-producer. NACA Communications and Public Affairs Director Darren Duarte, himself an Emmy-winning journalist, is a frequent contributor to the show along with weekly commentary from NACA Founder and CEO Bruce Marks.

The show first aired March 16, 2011 and has had rapid audience growth since its start. The program airs each Wednesday at 1:00 p.m. Eastern Time/10:00 a.m. Pacific Time on www.LATalkRadio.com, channel 2. The show can be heard live and be downloaded as a podcast both through the LA Talk Radio website and through iTunes. Additionally, as of early 2013, the program is rebroadcast on several terrestrial radio stations around the US.

Allegations Against NACA

The Connecticut Department of Banking: The Connecticut Department of Banking sanctioned NACA for failure to renew its Broker License ^[26] which expired December 31, 2010. However, the consent order, issued by Banking Commissioner Howard F. Pitkin, noted that the failure to renew was a clerical oversight, specifically stating that "NACA inadvertently failed to apply for renewal of its license for the 2011 licensing period", and "on January 4, 2011, NACA filed a Form MU1, Uniform Mortgage Lender/Mortgage Broker Form, on the Nationwide Mortgage Licensing System and Registry (“NMLS”) seeking to obtain a mortgage broker license in Connecticut."

NACA acknowledged the error, agreed to a civil penalty and renewed its Connecticut license in order to resolve the issue.

South Carolina Department of Consumer Affairs vs. Neighborhood Assistance Corporation: According to Docket Number 09-ALJ-30-0430-IJ, South Carolina Department of Consumer Affairs issued a subpoena on August 26, 2009 to NACA requesting that NACA produce a number of documents related to NACA’s provision of mortgage restructuring services to South Carolina consumers. After NACA failed to produce the requested documents, the Department filed a Motion for an Order Compelling Compliance with on September 29, 2009. NACA responded by filing a memorandum in opposition to the motion, a Motion to Quash the subpoena and a Motion for Protective Order. A hearing on the Motions was held on February 3, 2010, and post-hearing briefs were thereafter submitted by both parties.

May 18, 2010, Chief Administrative Law Judge, Ralph King Anderson, III found that NACA was required to comply with the Department’s subpoena issued August 26, 2009. Accordingly, it was ordered that the Department’s Motion for Order Compelling Compliance was granted. NACA was ordered to provide the information and documents sought in the Department’s subpoena within thirty (30) days of receipt of the Order. It was furthermore ordered that NACA’s Motions to Quash and for a Protective Order was denied.^[27]