Following passage by Congress of the economic stabilization legislation last week, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton today renewed her call for additional action to curb the current economic crisis. Senator Clinton was joined by development and housing advocates at ACCION New York and New Jersey, a microlender that serves small businesses with loans and financial counseling. Senator Clinton outlined the next necessary steps that will help homeowners affected by the crisis, put in place new regulatory oversight, and enact broader economic reforms to prevent the crisis on Wall Street from impacting Main Street.
"The rescue package passed last week was a crucial first step to prevent the economic troubles from deepening, but now we need to focus on helping Americans who are feeling the crunch of this economic crisis and get our economy back on the right track," said Senator Clinton. "We need to help homeowners in danger of foreclosure by rewriting the toxic mortgages that are at the root of this crisis. Our next actions have to put working families first so that we stop more Americans from losing their homes."
"ACCION New York and New Jersey has seen firsthand, through the eyes of our microloan borrowers, the impact that the economic crisis has already had on the small business community," said Gina Harman, president and CEO of ACCION New York and New Jersey. Additional action to halt the crisis will be crucial to the survival of New York's entrepreneurs. In this crisis, they face heightened barriers to accessing credit as well as and financial hardship caused by decreased consumer spending and rising energy prices."
Senator Clinton has consistently pushed for measures that would offer relief to homeowners facing foreclosure. Senator Clinton has proposed the Homeowners Mortgage Enterprise (HOME), modeled after the Great Depression-era Homeowners Loan Corporation (HOLC), to rewrite mortgages and reset terms so that creditworthy families would be able to keep their homes and make affordable payments. She has also proposed tax incentives that would help to jumpstart the housing market to increase demand and inject liquidity into the credit market. To read more on Senator Clinton's proposals and actions on the economic crisis, please visit http://clinton.senate.gov/issues/housing/subprime/.
About ACCION New York and New Jersey
ACCION New York and New Jersey is a nonprofit microlending organization that contributes to the economic development of the New York metropolitan region by providing loans and advisory services to individuals and small businesses that do not have access to traditional sources of credit. As a leader in both U.S. microfinance and local small business lending, ACCION has provided over $80 million in small loans since its inception in 1991. Ranging from experienced restaurateurs to home-based businesses and native New Yorkers to recent immigrants, loan recipients have transformed capital into citywide economic development, positive community change, and personal empowerment.
In January 2009, ACCION New York combined operations with ACCION USA.