I spend time talking with homeowners every single day. I listen to their stories day after day and it’s so painful, because I feel so helpless. Many times I want to scream. The foreclosure crisis that has been allowed to continue in this country must be stopped, and I’m quite sure it would have been months ago… if homeowners had a powerful lobby in Washington… if America’s homeowners had a voice that could be heard.

Well, this next year is a very important election year on both sides of the aisle, and to the Obama Administration. And it’s time for the voices of homeowners to be heard.

I’d like to think that there is no stronger or more outspoken advocate for homeowners in this country than Mandelman Matters, and we started filming homeowners at risk of foreclosure for a documentary on the crisis over a year ago. Since then, we’ve been looking for the “right” project… one that would carry the voices of distressed homeowners to the politicians on both sides of the aisle, to the bankers and mortgage servicers, to the media, and to the nation as a whole… and we’ve now found that “right” project in “A Hundred Thousand Homeowners – Voices of Hope & Change”.

“A Hundred Thousand Homeowners” is a documentary that will deliver a cacophony of outrage at the way our government has addressed the foreclosure crisis. It will make loud the voices of a hundred thousand homeowners.

The finished documentary, will be distributed using the power of the Internet, but it will also be distributed on DVD, wrapped in high-impact “A Hundred Thousand Homeowners” packaging. It will land on the desks of every single elected representative in the House of representatives and the U.S. Senate. It will be sent to the governors of all 50 states… to every single banking industry CEO… to every major media outlet. It will be seen, the voices it represents will be heard, and the story will be told.

GOALS OF THE DOCUMENTARY:

A. We want Congress to act to strengthen the HAMP program by adding hard and fast rules under which banks MUST modify a mortgage. The program is funded by tax dollars and is NOT working on a completely voluntary basis. Here’s how banks view loan modifications.

B. We want the Treasury Department and/or Congress to impose penalties on lenders and servicers who break the rules under HAMP. Here’s what a judge said about HAMP rules.

C. We want Congress to pass the bankruptcy reform that President Obama spoke of in his speech introducing the program that would allow for judicial loan modifications. We need to give judges the power to modify mortgages on primary residences in bankruptcy, because the threat alone wold motivate banks to do it themselves. My article on the subject: A Time for Good Judgement – We Need Judges to Modify How Banks Behave.

D. We want HAMP to require principal reductions under appropriate circumstances. It’s not fair for banks to be able to foreclose on a home and then sell it to a new buyer for half the balance on the mortgage just to get it off of their books. Congress must remove incentives that banks have to foreclose. Read Diane Thompson’s testimony in front of the senate.

We need everyone’s help to make this happen, and it’s far too important to be allowed to fail. People ask me all the time how they can help. Well, here’s how. Together we can be heard… together we will make a difference.

The Documentary: A Hundred Thousand Homeowners

A Hundred Thousand Homeowners will open with President Obama’s speech introducing his Making Home Affordable program, which was to help millions, but has fallen far short of its goals. It will include interviews with real homeowners… unscripted… as they share what they’ve been forced to endure trying to save, or losing their homes.

It will deliver the real numbers of loan modifications, the real costs of the failed program, and the real need to do something to fix what’s so clearly broken… NOW. It will illustrate why it’s not homeowners who are at fault, for it was not they that caused this catastrophe… without question it was the banks and investment banks that brought us to where we are today.

The federal programs that have been put in place to rescue those banks and their shareholders and investors, have cost the American taxpayer trillions. While the American homeowner has received little more than a series of broken promises and outright lies.

I’ve written close to 200 articles on Mandelman Matters to-date, and if you’ve read even one, you know that I’m quite capable of breaking eggs when an omelet is ordered. I don’t pull any punches, and I’m not beholding to anyone but myself… and I’m a homeowner, just like you.

A Hundred Thousand Homeowners will be a wake-up call in Washington D.C. It will send the very clear message that doing nothing is not an option… that favoring the banks over the American people, at a time like this, can only result in being voted out of office. The voices any one American homeowner may be faint to the point of being inaudible, but the voices of A Hundred Thousand Homeowners will be deafening as the sound echoes through the halls of our legislature, and into the Oval Office.

A Virtual March on Washington…

Everyone can join this virtual march on Washington but there is a minimum cost to participate: $1.00. That’s “one dollar,” just so everyone’s clear about this. And by contributing one dollar, you’re name will be listed as one of the 100,000 voices, if you want it to be… or kept anonymous, if you’d prefer it that way.

By contributing $1.00, you???ll be supporting something important… something that will be heard… something that has to at least start to make a difference, because when politicians see that 100,000 people have taken the time to support something, they know that behind those 100,000 are many more who feel the same way.

Of course, you can decide to send more… you could send $5, or $10, or even $20 in support of the project. The thing about producing a video program is that you can always do more… interview more people, increase its production values, license music. And you can trust that we will use as much as we receive to make the documentary have that much more impact. If we receive $150,000, we’ll be able to use a celebrity host or voice… if we receive more, we may be able to air the program on cable.

But, all we need to make it happen is $1.00 from 100,000 people who understand what Mandelman Matters is all about, and want their voice to be heard. Who knows… if everyone loves what we accomplish, maybe we’ll do it again… and again. I have to believe that at some point… the madness of the foreclosure crisis will have to be stopped, because in the end, this is still very much a country of the people, by the people, and for the people.

Please take the time to send in your $1.00 today. Time is of the essence, and it’s not easy to get 100,000 people to do anything. So, send your dollar now, and help spread the word by asking others to do the same. We plan to have the documentary program completed and distributed by Valentine’s Day, but we can’t do it without everyone’s support.

You can send your dollar via credit card and Pay Pal by clicking on the “Contribute to the Cause” button, which you’ll find at the top right of the Mandelman Matters site. Or you can send your check to:

A Hundred Thousand Homeowners

1472 Marelen Drive

Fullerton, CA 92835

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The Outspoken $100

FOR THOSE WITH SOMETHING IMPORTANT TO SAY…

Do you have a few choice words you’d like to say to those in Congress, to The White House, to the press, your governor, and/or of course, to your bank? Well, here???s your chance.

When you sign on to support “A Hundred Thousand Homeowners” as a member of the OUTSPOKEN $100, you can send in YOUR OWN 2-4 MINUTE MESSAGE on digital tape or as a digital file. Any digital video camera will do. Your message may or may not be included on the DVD, but IT WILL BE POSTEDon the “AHundredThousand Homeowners.com” Website, and it will be easy to find because we’ll organize each homeowner video by bank, or topic.

JUST IMAGINE… when anyone is looking for information about say, Bank of America, they’ll find this site and everyone’s video message about Bank of America right under the Bank of America heading. And when politicians, their staffers, members of the media and/or others see what’s there, they’ll get the message… your message.

ALL IT TAKES IS $100. We don’t expect many homeowners to do it, and frankly we wish we could offer to everyone for free, but unfortunately it will take a great deal of time and money to present your video comments in the proper light.

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Performance Guarantee: Although I don’t foresee this being an issue, in the unlikely event that we do not receive sufficient funds to complete and distribute the project, we will donate all excess proceeds to Homes for Our Troops, which assists severely injured service men and women and their immediate families, supplying building materials and professional labor and coordinating the process of building new adapting existing homes with handicapped accessibility