Protests Aimed at Bankers' Convention

Chicago - For five decades, Bonita Williamson called a house at 56th and South Loomis Streets home.

She's slated to be evicted from that home on Monday.

"Everyone thinks it's a property, it's a building. It's a legacy," Williamson said. "We had five generations grow up in this building."

Williamson is a victim of the mortgage crisis.

Making payments on the two-flat was no problem when she had money coming in, but the economy tanked, her income dropped, and she started missing payments.

"Really, I couldn't afford a almost 13 percent interest rate payment," she said. "The more I reached out to the bank, the more they just shut doors."

Williamson says she wound up like a lot of people -- with a bank unwilling to re-negotiate her mortgage.

So on Sunday, several hundred people gathered at a downtown hotel and took aim at the banks.

They billed it "the showdown in Chicago" -- three days of protests scheduled to coincide with the American Bankers Association's convention.

Senator Dick Durbin was one of the speakers who blasted the bankers for taking government bailout money and refusing to bail out struggling homeowners.

Right here in the midwest, it's one in every six people in a homeless shelter victims of foreclosure," Durbin said. "As long as those plywood boarded up houses are there, we're not going to have an economic recovery."

On Bonita Williamson's block, two homes are already boarded up.

Hers will join them soon.

"The economy is bad, they had the bailout. Where did that money go," Williamson asked. "They're supposed to help us, but most of us aren't being helped."

She hopes three days of protests will convince bankers to help more.