Gale Force--Gale Cincotta (Paperback) | Released: 15 Mar 2011

Did the US mortgage implosion of 2007 which led to the worldwide recession have to happen? Gale Cincotta (Chicago, 1929-2001), and the National People's Action (NPA) she founded, battled for decades to get the laws and regulations which would have made it much less likely. In the 1960s Gale battled the Chicago Public Schools for a better education for her six sons. She then fought realtors and lenders to provide reasonable mortgages where none were available. They had "redlined" many city neighborhoods. Realizing that laws had to be changed, Gale expanded her battlegrounds to the State of Illinois and then the United States Congress. Her actions led to passage of the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (HMDA) in 1976 and the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) in 1977. Senator William Proxmire (D-WI), chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, called Gale "the godmother of CRA". Barney Frank called CRA "very important addressing the needs". Gale fought hard to make these laws applicable to all mortgage lenders nationwide. Had she succeeded, most of the "toxic" mortgages of the past 20 years could not have been written or sold on the secondary market. And the battles continue... In the words of Mike Dukakis, former Governor of Massachusetts and 1988 Democratic Party Nominee for President: "At a time when hundreds of Americans are wondering what happened to their homes, their bank accounts and their lives, Gale's story is timely and relevant. She bothered a lot of people, and some of them didn't like it, but we have a lot of people in this country that ought to be bothered after the wreckage that they have produced in the lives of so many of our fellow citizens". Gale was one of this country's greatest organizers and activists. This is her story, told in detail by those who knew her best, skillfully woven together and placed in context by Michael Westgate and Ann Vick-Westgate. The story of Gale Cincotta, who had less than a high school education, is an inspiration to those who choose to stand upon her broad shoulders.
About the Author: Michael Westgate has a unique lens through which to document the work of Gale Cincotta. Cincotta was a genius in identifying the national problem of disinvestment in poor communities. She gathered headlines as she brought activist organizations nationwide to march on Washington under the banner of the National People's Action (NPA). Washington's leading politicians learned to fear, respect, and sometimes loathe Cincotta. But she also needed a program that worked. Westgate, a staff member at the Federal Home Loan Bank Board, became her ally in Washington, even accepting her collect phone calls against agency policy. Westgate saw, first-hand, neighborhoods in Chicago where unscrupulous businessmen sold coal laced with rocks, deliberately sabotaging old heating systems. He, like Cincotta, observed realtors using scare tactics to force out elderly white homeowners and sell their homes at triple the price, often to African-Americans unsuspecting of major defects in their first homes. Lenders took advantage of Federal Housing Administration (FHA) insurance to collect when mortgages were foreclosed, then "flip" the houses through the same realtors. Westgate began his work at the Bank Board as Assistant to the Director of the Federal Savings & Loan Insurance Corp. (since merged into FDIC). He toured and recommended management changes for FSLIC to deal with 14 failed savings and loan associations in Chicago, based on his successful divestment of failed Republic Savings and Loan in Washington, DC. Having managed housing for the 1000 people living in foreclosed Republic-financed buildings he had personal insight into much of what was wrong with urban mortgage lending. Then, under the chairmanship of Preston Martin, Westgate was asked to join Bill Whiteside as the third employee of today's NeighborWorks America, known then as the Urban Reinvestment Task Force. Westgate had overall administrative responsibility for the growing network of Neighborhood Housing Services programs, based on the original NHS in Pittsburgh, PA. In that role he was instrumental in the formation of the NHS in Chicago and it was there he and Gale Cincotta joined forces.