The following is a speech I gave at the Unitarian Universalist Church, downtown Fort Lauderdale on January 13, 2013 in celebration of the birthday of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
In a speech delivered April 4, 1967, Dr. King asked that we play the role of the Good Samaritan. Many of you here would know that story but for those of you who don't, and for those who cannot remember it...
A man in the crowd asked Jesus, "who is my neighbor?" and Jesus replied that there was a man travelling on the road to Jericho when he was felled upon by theives. They robbed him, beat him up and left him on the side of the road to die. Some time later, a priest came by, saw the injured man and crossed to the other side of the road. A little while later, a Levite passed by, saw the injured man and he too crossed to the other side of the road. Later still, a Samaritan riding on a donkey, came upon the injured man. This Samaritan, got off his donkey, rushed to the injured man, bandaged up his wounds, put him on the donkey and took him to the nearest inn. At the inn, the Samaritan told the innkeeper "whatever you spend in caring for this man I will reimburse you upon my return."
Fast forward to the 20th century... and Dr. King said that we "must come to see that the whole Jericho road must be transformed so that men and women will not be constantly beaten and robbed as they make their journey on life's highway."
Florida today is our Jericho road. Men and women, especially those of color, are robbed of their homes, emotionally beaten up and left on the side of the road by the profiteers of Wall Street.
The State of Florida ranks number one in deliquent mortgages. That is double the national average and at 8% does not include those already in foreclosure nor does it count those whose homes are underwater but are still making their mortgage payments.
During the *five (5) year period 2008-2012, 1,274,919 homes were foreclosed right here in the Sunshine State. ** Broward County, in the last two and one half years, saw 59,000 foreclosures. As a visual, picture every single home in the cities of Naples, Fort Meyers and Sarasota, empty, boarded-up, abandoned. ***1900 foreclosures are filed every month at the Broward County Courthouse and that is in addition to the 60,000 pending foreclosure cases just sitting in the courthouse, waiting...
Overwhelmed yet? When you do the arithmetic, we're talking about 6 million people if we were to say conservatively that four people lived in each of those homes plus a pet.
Where are all these people?
Where are all these pets?
The result of a foreclosure if followed by an eviction is homelessness.
The Florida Homeless Coalition one day/one night count in January 2012 tallied the number of persons living on the street or staying in emergency shelters to be 54,300.
Yes, these are large numbers - but they are more than that. They are fathers, mothers, children and yes, we are our brother's keeper. Sure, we can say, it's their foreclosure, their fault, I pay my mortgage, lawd knows how times I've heard that but our property values are lower; our cities don't have money to pay our first responders and our retirement plans are not what they used to be.
So... the question is, what are we doing?
We know what Dr. King did. He stood shoulder to shoulder with the sanitation workers, he crossed the bridge at Selma with his neighbors.
Are we going to follow in the footsteps of Dr. King and stand shoulder to shoulder with our neighbors in their eviction defense?
Are we going to demand that our government pressure Fannie and Freddie into principal reductions?
Are we going to fill the courtrooms so that judges know we are watching?
Or are we going to cross to the other side of the road like the priest and the Levite?
* Counsel on Homelessness 2012 Report
** WLRN Miami January 2, 2013
*** Judge Tuter, View From the Bench, November 9, 2012
