Up to now the big banks and the real estate speculators seem to have had all the advantages on their side.  They write the foreclosure laws,  pay off the politicians, and use faulty paperwork to kick families out of their homes.  People protest,  but the politicians refuse to do anything that would really stem the tide of foreclosures.  Whole neighborhoods are scarred by abandoned properties.  Homeless people sleep in the alley behind empty houses.  It is a social calamity and a moral outrage.  But things are about to change because one woman in Philadelphia is giving people a chance to make a difference with their votes.