by Laura Gottesdiener
Zuccotti Park Press
2013
SKU: 9781884519215
With A Dream Foreclosed, Laura Gottesdiener, a Brooklyn-based investigative journalist, offers a thoroughly researched picture of the housing crisis within the context of the broader financial collapse, showing that the true cost is not in real estate value but in human tragedy - especially the mass displacement of American families and dreams. Gottesdiener's "page-turning testimony" reminds us that not a single Wall Street banker has been arrested for the countless predatory loans, acts of fraud and foreclosure abuse that have contributed to the more than ten million people being evicted from their foreclosed homes since 2007-with millions more foreclosures in progress. That ten million people have been thrown out of their homes (the equivalent of the entire population of Michigan) with almost no coverage of their stories or perspectives is itself a testament to corporate influence over public education, mass media and national debate.
Through real-life stories of four American neighborhoods fighting against foreclosure, A Dream Foreclosed gives voice to the silenced population most affected by the global economic crisis. What makes the book so compelling is that Gottesdiener profiles four heroic families who not only challenge the big banks when threatened with foreclosure and eviction - they organize their neighbors and win. Her main subjects, Bertha Garrett in Detroit, Martha Biggs in Chicago, Griggs Wimbley in North Carolina, and Michael Hutchins in Tennessee, all embody the spectacular possibilities that emerge when everyday people challenge corporate power.
"Compelling and lucidly told stories.... A riveting book." - Naomi Klein, author of The Shock Doctrine