Housing is the bedrock of U.S. family life, and homeownership is the one certain thing the average American depends on to accumulate wealth for retirement. That’s why it’s called the American dream.

Take away the American dream with a deep economic recession, soaring unemployment, rampant home foreclosures and widespread loss of middle-class wealth and suddenly the streets of Chicago in 2011 are beginning to look like Grant Park in 1968 during the Democratic National Convention.

The American middle class — otherwise known as “the 99 percent” — are beginning to demonstrate, march and speak out and create a movement called Occupy Wall Street.

The protests focus on the shift that is occurring in America and around the world. It’s a rally against banks and corporate power, loss of middle-class homeownership and job opportunities, cuts in government programs and grinding poverty.

Protesters say they are demonstrating because they are upset that billions of dollars in bank bailouts doled out during the Great Recession allowed banks to resume earning huge profits while average Americans have had no relief from high unemployment, job insecurity and loss of wealth. They also believe that the richest 1 percent of Americans do not pay their fair share in taxes.

Locally, the group Occupy Chicago collected 2,000 people who marched from the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago on LaSalle and Jackson streets to Grant Park, and then set up tents.

Occupy Chicago also issued a proposed agenda for solving the crisis in America which ranged from repealing tax cuts for the wealthy to investigating and prosecuting Wall Street insiders who broke the law and helped create the 2008 financing disaster. The group also urged forgiveness of $946 billion in student-loan debt.

What is surprising is that the Occupy Wall Street movement’s agenda makes no effort to push for forgiveness of a major part of the average American’s housing debt to spark a real estate industry rebound.

Both protestors and Washington, D.C. politicians have forgotten that new-home construction and the sale and remodeling of existing homes is the spark that will reignite the U.S. economy.

Along with construction labor, jobs are created in the industries where lumber, concrete, lighting fixtures, heating equipment, carpeting, appliances, furniture and other products that go into a home are produced. And more jobs are created when real estate agents, lawyers and brokers provide services to home builders and buyers.

“With the ruckus underway in the U.S. about how the bailout benefitted banks at the expense of homeowners, don’t be surprised if you see a proposal introduced in Congress by 2013 to readjust debt in America,” said Perry Farella, a mortgage banker with Prospect Mortgage, LLC in Chicago.

“We have a major supply problem in the new housing market, and a huge inventory in the foreclosure pipeline,” Farella said. “One way to fix the problem is to rebalance housing values nationwide. This is a way to kick-start the housing market and get real estate moving again.”

Farella believes banks nationwide must write down the principle loan amount on most middle-class Americans’ mortgages by one-third to one-half to bring real estate values into line with the market.

Of course, there would also be a 33 percent to 50 percent reduction in the homeowner’s equity or down payment as part of the write down, so both sides would give up some value.

“Inflated real estate values really are paper losses, not real money,” Farella said. “So, why not adjust home values and loan principal to reality and fairly create a bailout balance in the U.S.”

Farella believes the rebalancing of housing debt nationwide would be the greatest stimulus program since the start of World War II, which led America out of the Great Depression.

Housing advocates are hoping that Congress considers this innovative proposal from a mortgage banker, and other grassroots suggestions from housing advocates to get the American economy rolling again.

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By Boyee from Mid-North
Posted: 10/31/2011 1:08 PM

I guess the "Occupiers" are very bright because the middle class is way less than 99% of the country. This would mean there are 1% rich and everyone middle class. There are more than 1% rich in America not to mention a sizable portion of poor people, especially in this economy. Just because someone says something is true does not necessarily mean it is true.

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By Boyee from Mid-North
Posted: 10/31/2011 1:03 PM

The "Occupy" people are part of the problem, not part of the solution. They are just a group of complainers, many of who are living beyond their means. Civil disobedience will not give people jobs or improve the economy. All it does is create a pain in everyone's ass.

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By Boyee from Mid-North
Posted: 10/31/2011 1:00 PM

Banks forgiving debt to people who made ill advised housing choices is the dumbest idea I've ever heard. Who is going to pay for this? The only way this could be done is with taxpayer money and I have always lived within my means and I don't want to help bail out people who can't afford their McMansions and purchased them anyway.

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By Boyee from Mid-North
Posted: 10/31/2011 12:57 PM

People keep trying to blame one politician or another, but people repeatedly living beyond their means is the primary cause for the poor economy. The government bailouts by both Bush and Obama just made a bad situation worse by bailing out those living beyond their means and taxing all including those living within their means. It is not the fault of those living within their mean. I see too many poor people driving around in fancy cars they cannot afford, a prime example of the problem.

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By Boyee from Mid-North
Posted: 10/31/2011 12:53 PM

Most foreclosures were caused by 2 parties, the bank and the buyer both the bank knowing the buyer couldn't afford the McMansion he/she was intending to buy and the buyer in most cases also knew they couldn't afford to purchase their property, yet both sides over the last decade repeatedly blindly the buyer couldn't afford said properties and they knew it too and went in to it anyway. Blame shared 50/50 and now they want the government (the taxpayers) to forgive their debt.