IV 
112TH CONGRESS 
1ST SESSION 
H. RES. 344 
Expressing the sense of the House of Representatives that the States should 
enact a temporary moratorium on residential mortgage foreclosures. 
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 
JULY 8, 2011 
Ms. KAPTUR submitted the following resolution; which was referred to the 
Committee on Financial Services 
RESOLUTION 
Expressing the sense of the House of Representatives that 
the States should enact a temporary moratorium on resi-
dential mortgage foreclosures. 
Whereas there are nearly 6,900,000 fewer jobs in the United 
States economy since the start of the recession; 
Whereas, in April 2011, the unemployment rate remains at 
9.0 percent, nearly double the unemployment rate of the 
pre-recession economy; 
Whereas the Director of the Congressional Budget Office tes-
tified as follows in a Senate hearing on January 28, 
2009: ‘‘Challenging conditions seem likely to persist for 
some time in the housing and mortgage markets as well. 
Housing sales remain weak, and construction activity 
continues to decline. With the housing market’s large 
glut of vacant properties, the prices of homes are likely 
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•HRES 344 IH 
to fall considerably further, pushing the value of more 
borrowers’ homes below the value of their outstanding 
mortgages. As more of those ‘underwater’ borrowers ex-
perience losses of income during the current recession, 
rates of delinquency and foreclosure on residential mort-
gage loans are likely to rise further.’’; 
Whereas the current economic situation began to unfold some 
time ago and, in fact, the Federal Reserve System first 
began to supply additional liquidity to credit markets in 
August 2007, as pressures from losses on mortgage-re-
lated assets unexpectedly began to mount; 
Whereas many economists today believe that to avoid relaps-
ing into another devastating financial crisis, a key compo-
nent is the Nation’s housing markets and providing nec-
essary changes for our Nation’s financial markets; 
Whereas the intent of the Troubled Assets Relief Program of 
the Department of the Treasury, established by the 
Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008 (Public 
Law 110–343), was to, in large portion, purchase trou-
bled assets, including securitized mortgages, and to en-
able banks and other lenders engaged in the mortgage 
market to engage in mortgage modifications, loan work-
outs, and other processes designed to stem off the ever- 
rising tide of foreclosures, and that has not happened to 
the level necessary to stem the tide of foreclosures and 
it continues; 
Whereas there were nearly 219,000 new foreclosures in April 
2011, which is 7,300 homes per day; 
Whereas it is projected by housing market experts that there 
are approximately 11,000,000 homes in the Nation which 
are underwater or in foreclosure; 
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•HRES 344 IH 
Whereas the United States finds its housing market in a pre-
carious and unstable state, where homeowners’ mortgage 
balances are routinely larger than the current value of 
their homes and where people are losing their homes at 
an alarming rate; 
Whereas during the Great Depression, the State of Min-
nesota declared an economic emergency, and enacted a 
law granting relief in certain cases, ‘‘for inequitable fore-
closure of mortgages on real estate and execution sales 
and for postponing certain others’’ (Chapter 339, Laws 
of Minnesota, 1933, page 514); 
Whereas the Minnesota statute included provisions that post-
poned foreclosure sales or extended mortgage redemption, 
as well as taking actions relating to the jurisdiction of 
such activities, and the Minnesota statute established a 
hard and fast deadline of when such relief would end, 
making the Act temporary in nature; 
Whereas this law was challenged in the case Home Building 
& Loan Association v. Blaisdell, which was argued before 
the United States Supreme Court in 1933, with the 
Court ruling in 1934 in favor of the Minnesota law; 
Whereas there are clear challenges to implementing a nation-
wide moratorium on mortgage foreclosures, yet this case 
tells us that the States can take action using the police 
power of the State; and 
Whereas, in this time of instability and uncertainty, with un-
employment at 9.0 percent for April 2011, a global finan-
cial system still reeling from the effects of the recession, 
a volatile housing market, and our Nation’s citizens 
struggling to balance essential needs of housing, work, 
and nutrition, it is time that the Nation, through the ac-
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tion of the President of the United States, declare a na-
tional foreclosure emergency and State-by-State seek to 
end the foreclosure crisis: Now, therefore, be it 
Resolved, That it is the sense of the House of Rep-
resentatives that— 
(1) the President of the United States should 
declare a national residential mortgage foreclosure 
emergency and, through such declaration, encourage 
the States, by use of their police power, to enact a 
moratorium on residential mortgage foreclosures 
similar to the moratorium enacted by the State of 
Minnesota in 1933 and upheld by the Supreme 
Court of the United States in Home Building & 
Loan Association v. Blaisdell (290 U.S. 398 
(1934)); and 
(2) the States should exercise such power and 
enact such a moratorium. 
Æ 
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