88 Year Old "Mother Branch" Threatened With Foreclosure Of Home; Countrywide Subprime Loan Suspected

In California, a column by Patty Fisher in the San Jose Mercury News reports:

• "For more than 50 years, Onedia Branch has handed out clothing, food, hope and prayers to needy people in East Palo Alto, operating her own community charity from her house on Farrington Way. But these days Mother Branch, as everyone calls her, is the one asking for hope and prayers. Less than a year after she refinanced her house and put herself on the hook for loan payments she couldn't afford, the 88-year-old woman is in danger of losing her house and becoming yet another casualty of the subprime mortgage market that targets the elderly, the naive and those with poor credit."

A manager at Redwood Financial, the firm which originated the mortgage, reportedly refused to speak to the Mercury News on the record. Also, several calls to Countrywide, the mammoth lender that took over the loan, reportedly went unreturned.

For more, see Mortgage mess snares savior of East Palo Alto community.

For story update, see East Palo Alto humanitarian avoids eviction (8-17-07 - Palo Alto Online News).

Postscript

Countrywide was sued last Thursday in a Boston Federal Court for alleged racial discrimination in connection with the conduct of its subprime mortgage lending business. In December, 2006, it also reached a settlement with the New York Attorney General in which the company must monitor its lending practices to prevent discrimination against blacks and Latinos.

Go here for more on these cases.