The new secretary charmed a public meeting last night in Philadelphia that was sponsored by the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN).
"I'm fired up," Schenck told a packed Wayland Temple Baptist Church in North Philadelphia, giving the audience his office number in Harrisburg. "Help us help you."
"Amazing," whispered Irv Ackelsberg, a lawyer at Community Legal Services, which represents homeowners in foreclosure actions.
Even so, Schenck and the community leaders were not quite on the same page. In an interview before the meeting, the secretary said that the principal culprits were "small groups of people, individuals, who prey on low-income people, and not banks or institutions with household names."
Schenck says he wanted to see how current laws worked before advocating changes.
The ACORN crowd called for new legislation after hearing homeowners describe problems with national lenders such as Household Finance.
Karen Beltran of West Chester said the Household International Inc. subsidiary made two loans in 2001 secured by her home, each with high interest rates and high fees.
Beltran said she cannot refinance because conventional lenders say her home is not worth as much as her mortgages. Nor could she pay $6,000 in prepayment penalties.
"I'm backed into a corner," she said. "People are victimized because we gave our trust to the wrong people."
Reached outside the meeting, a Household official declined to comment on Beltran's case.
Last year, the company announced it had revamped its lending practices.
In a settlement reached in October with 37 attorneys general, Household, of Prospect Heights, Ill., agreed to pay $484 million to resolve consumer complaints, including $30 million due to Pennsylvanians who say they were tricked.
