Greg Geiser, the multi-millionaire CEO of Wedgewood Inc., in Manhattan Beach.
The company seeks to foreclose on the Inglewood home of Marie Riggins, an elderly 82 year old widow an African-American homeowner. The foreclosure grab is part of a continuing pattern by white corporate real estate companies to oust distressed Black homeowners from their homes in Inglewood and South l.A.
“Corporate real estate firms continue to grab homes of distressed Black homeowners such as Mrs Riggins in Inglewood and South L.A. at fire sale prices,” says Najee Ali, President Project Islamic Hope. “They have refused to negotiate or accept offers from the homeowners. Their predatory practice further shrinks an already shrunken and costly home market for African-Americans.”
(Beth LaBerge/KQED)
Jocelyn Foreman was full of nervous energy and dread.
It was a crisp morning in early March. She arrived at the Pleasant Hill Community Center to find a handful of men and women in a semicircle outside the sandstone-colored building, clutching folders and holding cell phones.
They were there for a foreclosure auction, poised to bid on the house that Foreman rents: a single-story, 1,500-square-foot tract home in Pinole. It’s a simple home, set back from the street, with a steep sloping backyard, worn carpets and a roof that leaks when it rains.
A man with a clipboard started the bidding at $175,000. A woman in a maroon sweatshirt and another man offered competing bids. First $176,000. Then $177,000. Then $180,000.