[Congressional Record Volume 157, Number 160 (Monday, October 24, 2011)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E1909]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




    IN RECOGNITION OF THE EMPOWERING AND STRENGTHENING OHIO'S PEOPLE

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                        HON. DENNIS J. KUCINICH

                                of ohio

                    in the house of representatives

                        Monday, October 24, 2011

  Mr. KUCINICH. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in recognition of Empowering 
and Strengthening Ohio's People (ESOP), an organization dedicated to 
providing assistance to homeowners who are facing foreclosure, or 
struggling to make their monthly mortgage payments due to a predatory 
lending or hardship situation.
  The East Side Organizing Project was founded by Inez Killingsworth in 
1993 as a means to address the unsafe conditions of her Union-Miles 
neighborhood. During the early 1990s, ESOP, under Ms. Killingsworth's 
leadership, began to rally against the lack of credit available to 
African Americans in the community. When predatory lending in the area 
increased and more and more community members were facing mortgage 
payments they could no longer afford, ESOP turned its focus to 
addressing this growing problem. ESOP became a statewide venture in 
2008, when it opened 10 offices throughout the state of Ohio. The 
organization was then renamed Empowering and Strengthening Ohio's 
People. ESOP acts as a foreclosure counseling agency. Through tactics 
varying from protesting banks to negotiating agreements between lenders 
and borrowers to taking financial executives on tours of the collapsing 
neighborhoods that are in peril due to predatory lending, ESOP has 
helped thousands of families in Ohio avoid losing their homes. In 2010, 
ESOP helped save more than 3,200 homes from foreclosure.
  Mr. Speaker and colleagues, please join me in recognizing Empowering 
and Strengthening Ohio's People and its advocacy work on behalf of Ohio 
homeowners.

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