September 20, 2022
Candidate for Massachusetts Governor Maura Healey,
September 5, 2022, the day before the Massachusetts primary I attended what I believed was a campaign rally in Lowell in your bid to become the Democratic nominee for Massachusetts Governor. You spoke on many subjects as to why you believe voters should elect you to Massachusetts's highest office. As I attended this event to represent many undecided voters and heard your speech, however, our group, representing Massachusetts homeowners victimized by predatory lending practices, specifically requests to know more from you.
As with Lowell and many of your campaign events, you say that you would fight predatory lending. Such a proclamation is a starting point of common agreement that in fact you can acknowledge, and we agree predatory lending does indeed exist here in Massachusetts. However, we like to further press you on the issue of predatory lending. Predatory lending is not showcased on display for all to see. Furthermore, recognizing predatory lending takes time and effort. Investigations to uncover what is left unseen, hidden in corners, spoken in hush breath must be rubricked, challenged, and exposed.
Currently, hundreds of residents in Massachusetts and beyond Massachusetts are victims of predatory lending. We are the victims of a specific predatory lender. We are a large body of working-class homeowners, taken advantage of by a lender who duped us into mortgages that enriches their own profits and investors while leaving homeowners with generational debt and suppression of wealth equity. Many people have spoken out to proclaim this organization is a predatory lender. Homeowners have filed countless complaints in your office of the Attorney General. Victims have protested in public. Articles have been written in the local and national newspapers. Local television reporters have produced several programs bringing the issue of predatory lending to viewers that referenced complaints that were filed in your Attorney General’s office. Yet nothing has become to correct the tragic wrongdoing against predatory lending here in your state, our state of Massachusetts.
Elyse Cherry is the CEO of BlueHub Capital. You and Ms. Cherry have a history going back beyond your time working for the previous Attorney General Martha Coakley, who Elyse Cherry was her campaign finance manager, a dubious relationship during Martha Coakley’s bid running for Governor in Massachusetts. Yes, you and Elyse Cherry have a connection dating back 30 years. During this time, Elyse Cherry started Boston Community Capital now called BlueHub Capital. She launched the Stabilizing Urban Neighborhoods (SUN) Initiative. BlueHub Capital is a registered 503(c) nonprofit charitable organization. The SUN program claims to prevent homeowners from losing their homes by buying the homes from previous lenders and selling them back to homeowners, claiming to save homeowners thousands of dollars and keeping properties from becoming vacant and neighborhoods in blight. Furthermore, Elyse Cherry’s SUN program was listed under your administration's webpage as a foreclosure prevention resource. The vulnerability of people trying to save their homes did not outweigh the profits and goals of BlueHub Capital under the guise of being called a non-profit organization. Elyse Cherry’s BlueHub Capital SUN program is the predatory lender we decry foul, ruining many homeowners' lives to the point where some have even lost their homes under Elyse Cherry’s SUN Initiative foreclosure prevention program.
Candidate Healey your position remains to the undersigned and I on this letter still unclear. Maura Healey, our group requests an in-person meeting with you. The issue is predatory lending. Elyse Cherry, CEO of BlueHub Capital who leads and moves the SUN initiative, is brash and bold about funding your campaign and organizing fundraising events in your bid for our highest elected office in Massachusetts. At the same time, we assert from direct impact, Elyse Cherry runs a non-profit organization that is a predatory lender. As our current elected Attorney General, we request a platform to have our experiences of victimization of predatory mortgage lending heard. Our engagement would shed light on predatory lending which again does not reveal itself until confronted. Additionally, we have pointed questions. We request clarity from your public campaign pledges to be a fighter against predatory lending. We seek some understanding to know where your boundaries are in upholding consumer protection versus supporting policies from businesses and lobbying interests.
Agreeing that predatory lending exists recognizes predatory lending has victims. Predatory lending ought not to be diminished to isolating individual cases. We represent victims of predatory lending by an organization originated in Massachusetts that is allowed to continue operating oppressive terms amongst the most marginalized and underrepresented in our communities. One victim of predatory lending is one victim too many. While your time is valuable, so too is saving our stability in the communities where we work and live and the legacies we fight to keep for our future generations. Time is of the essence, and we look forward to meeting with you soon before our November elections. Thank you.
Sincerely,