By David Swanson
In less than 24 hours, over 10,000 people—and rising fast—have emailed the new head of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, which oversees Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which underwrite mortgages for houses and apartment buildings.

The recipient of all of these communications, former Congressman Mel Watt, is meeting with Congress members next week to discuss his agenda.  He has now received this message thousands of times:

"I urge you to ask Congress to allow Fannie and Freddie to reduce loan balances for underwater homeowners.

"And I encourage you, without delay, to:   
"Stop reducing and begin increasing the number of multifamily apartment buildings financed by Fannie and Freddie.

"Develop rules, mandated over five years ago, to ensure that Fannie and Freddie fairly serve all credit-worthy borrowers.

"Make sure Fannie and Freddie provide funding, as required by law, for the National Housing Trust Fund and the Capital Management Fund."

The webpage from which these emails are sent is http://act.rootsaction.org/p/dia/action3/common/public/?action_KEY=10004   

The page notes: "Bankers and their flunkies in Congress are still trying to blame affordable housing for Wall Street's self-induced collapse of six years ago. We need to let Mel Watt know how many of us support expanding affordable housing."

RootsAction campaign coordinator David Swanson said: "Protecting people in this country from unfair lending and lack of housing is easily achievable, if only our government will listen."

RootsAction.org is an online initiative dedicated to galvanizing Americans who are committed to economic fairness, equal rights, civil liberties, environmental protection—and defunding endless wars.  RootsAction is endorsed by Jim Hightower, Barbara Ehrenreich, Cornel West, Daniel Ellsberg, Glenn Greenwald, Naomi Klein, Bill Fletcher Jr., Laura Flanders, former U.S. Senator James Abourezk, Coleen Rowley, Frances Fox Piven, and many others.