Kevin Kelly/Key photo Father Ernie Davis, left, administrator of St. Therese Little Flower Parish, addresses a CCO rally on morgage foreclosures Nov. 10 with Father Norman Rotert at his side.

Five years ago, she publicly endorsed, along with other city council members, a Kansas City Church Community Organization citywide plan to revitalize housing for low-income and elderly residents.

In that time, she noted, Kansas City has built the new Sprint Center and the new Power & Light entertainment district. The city has also renovated the Liberty Memorial, just in front of where Hermann was speaking Nov. 10, and even Federal Reserve Bank behind her is new.

But nothing, she admitted, has been done to help people in Kansas City keep their homes, and a national mortgage foreclosure crisis is looming.

"Today," she admitted Nov. 10, "we are no closer to a housing plan than we were five years ago."

Standing in the wind in 42-degree weather in front of the brand-new Federal Reserve Bank building near the Liberty Memorial, about 100 people representing Christian congregations again demanded action to prevent people from losing their homes.

Communities Creating Opportunity, formerly the Kansas City Church Community Organization, delivered a letter from its 24 Christian congregation members to Kansas City Federal Reserve Bank President Thomas Hoenig seeking help for people caught in the mortgage crisis.

"We just passed a $700 billion bailout" for corporations on Wall Street, noted Jude Huntz, director of the Diocesan Human Rights Office, at the rally. "If those corporations deserve a bailout, then people stuck in bad mortgages deserve a bailout."

The CCO stressed it isn't asking for handouts. But it is asking the Federal Reserve system to take the lead in assisting people who are about to lose their homes, often through no fault of their own, to renegotiate loan terms to turn non-performing mortgages into performing mortgages.

B.J. Atkinson, pastoral associate at St. Therese Little Flower Parish in Kansas City, told the story of Synnovea, a CCO member, who always paid her rent on time.

"Synnovea and her four children lost their home because the landlord did not pay the mortgage on the home he was renting to them," Atkinson said.

"The landlord received all the notices of the foreclosure. Synnovea received notice of the foreclosure when someone came to her door to put her out," Atkinson said. "So that morning, when her children went to school, they had a home. When they returned, they were homeless."

Atkinson told the story of Helen, whose husband was terminally ill. They had paid off their mortgage, but when their home needed a new roof, they took out a home improvement loan with a predatory lender.

"Helen was not able to keep up with the high second mortgage," Atkinson said. "Now, Helen is homeless. She bounces from family member to family member. She feels very ashamed to have lost the family home to what she thought was a home improvement loan."

City Councilman John Sharp told the crowd that he didn't need to read statistics to feel the impact of the looming mortgage foreclosure crisis. All he has to do is stand on the front porch of this Hickman Mills-Ruskin neighborhood in southeast Kansas City.

"I've got foreclosed properties on my block," he said.

His zip code, he said, has the highest foreclosure rate in Kansas City and one of the top 100 rates in the nation.

Rev. Wallace Hartsfeld, pastor of Metropolitan Missionary Baptist Church in Kansas City, told the crowd that the crisis is not just an individual tragedy. It is a community tragedy.

"It affects not only individuals but entire communities," he said. "We are not outsiders to this. We are insiders. Our own congregations are impacted. We run the risk of having this foreclosure crisis demise not only our community, but our nation as a whole."

After the rally, CCO representatives presented a three-point plan to Hoenig. Under the CCO plan, any bank that receives "bailout" assistance from the federal government should be required to: