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At an occasionally-fraught midday rally on the steps of City Hall on Tuesday, elected officials announced a set of measures to prevent deed theft, and stop the cycle of thousands of Black Brooklynites being stripped of their homes and their generational wealth.
Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso urged the City Council to allocate $5 million to combat deed theft in its budget for next year, and to prioritize an issue that has "no resources right now."
"We need to catch up," he said. "We have a chance here to not let this get so out of control that we can't provide any of these services, we can do it now before it becomes a crisis."
Thieves typically target financially-struggling homeowners with refinancing scams and foreclosure bail out loans that are designed to fail, grifting owners out of homes worth millions. Black and brown homeowners are particularly at risk for deed theft schemes given speculation in rapidly gentrifying neighborhoods, limited access to legal services, and a tendency to lack a formal will or estate plan, Reynoso said. The $5 million would go to outreach to educate homeowners about deed scams, and intake for free legal services.
Brooklyn Councilmembers Chi Ossé and Sandy Nurse also announced that they're going to introduce a new bill that would force the City to create a website that would publicly "name and shame" the "white collar thugs" who have been convicted of deed theft, and who hide behind a web of LLCs.
"If you get convicted of deed fraud or deed theft, which is larceny, we're going to plaster your face all over the internet, and the City is going to put your name, your address, your business address, and your associates all over it, so we can see the criminals and the parasites that you are," Nurse said. "We will find you, we will name you, and we will shame you."