"Frank" Advice Given As Lawmakers Re-Issue Warnings To Uncooperative Loan Servicers During Tour Of California's "Ground Zero" Of Home Foreclosures

In Stockton, California, the Central Valley Business Times reports:

• Four members of Congress saw from bus windows Saturday the face of foreclosure in the Central Valley. The tour of abandoned, boarded up homes preceded a congressional hearing on the foreclosure crisis where a powerful member of Congress warned the mortgage industry to listen to lawmakers now, lest stricter controls are imposed.

• “Foreclosures are the single biggest cause of economic problems we are in,” said Barry Frank, D-Mass., chairman of the House of Representatives’ Committee on Financial services. And then he sent a warning to the lending industry not to hide behind the law and fail to do all possible to ease the problem.

• “If people in the lending industry want to avoid some very severe, much more restrictive legislation, it would be in their interest to cooperate with us,” Mr. Frank said. San Francisco Bay Area congresswoman Jackie Speier went further. “Those who have violated the law … need to be held accountable,” says Ms. Speier. “We should encourage local DAs … to act. No one has been held accountable.”

For more, see Blunt warnings to housing industry from Congressional hearing.