A year ago, the effort to hold Wall Street legally accountable for the mortgage crises seemed to have sputtered out for lack of support at the top of the Justice Department.

Rather than give up, however, determined organizers ramped up pressure in a campaign to reclaim at least some of the wealth that has been robbed from communities of color and others in the mortgage crisis. In May 2013, the Home Defenders League (HDL), a membership organization of struggling homeowners with more than two dozen partners, including the Center for Popular Democracy (CPD), Alliance for a Just Society, Right to the City Alliance, Action for the Common Good and Occupy Homes, staged a dramatic 500 person Justice to Justice Rally and week of action in Washington, DC.

The Campaign for a Fair Settlement, a project of CPD and state partners (Including Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment, New York Communities for Change, Neighborhoods Organizing for Change, and others), continued to stoke public outrage at the de facto federal “Too Big to Jail” policy--ultimately leading to historic results. At the end of 2013, the Department of Justice responded to public outrage with increased enforcement activity and announced a record $13 billion settlement with JPMorgan Chase.

Although it only accounts for a small fraction of the damage done, the Chase settlement has stronger provisions to get aid to hard-hit homeowners than the previous national mortgage settlement.  It also sets an important precedent—the New York Times recently quoted Wall Street sources as predicting at least $50 billion in additional fines on other major banks.

In January, HDL, New York Communities for Change, and an emergency NY state coalition delivered a petition to Governor Cuomo to ensure that the state’s share of JPMorgan settlement funds are used for homeowner relief, instead of being steered toward tax cuts for the wealthy. Click here to sign.

Last month, CPD worked with NYCC and the New Day New York Coalition to coordinate a week of action that called for an end to the special deals for Wall Street and a commitment to building a city that works for all of us. Our groundbreaking report, One New York for All of Us: Leveraging New York’s Financial Power to Combat Inequality,revealed that toxic deals with Wall Street are costing New York City nearly $1 billion annually.