Decked out in snorkels, fins, and scuba gear, more than 150 activists took to the streets of Boston’s financial district on Monday to call attention to “underwater” mortgages which they say are the root cause of the nation’s ongoing foreclosure crisis.

The demonstration - a joint effort made by members of City Life/Vida Urbana, MassUniting, and elements of the Occupy Boston and Wall Street movements - was met with curious looks from bank employees standing in the lobbies of Bank of America, JP Morgan Chase, and Fannie Mae. But organizers did catch the ear of City Councillor-At-Large Felix Arroyo, who last week announced a proposed ordinance that would require the city only conduct business with banks working to reinvest in Boston.

Filed last Wednesday, the Invest in Boston ordinance would ask city financial officers to review the banks in which the city stores its revenue - accounts that together total more than $1 billion. Arroyo says that the city should only do business with banks that are financially responsible at the local level.

“What we ask banks about is their rates, you know what we don’t ask? How much are you lending to small businesses, what are your foreclosure prevention programs?” Arroyo said to the crowd while standing outside Bank of America headquarters. “As a city, we are actually a billionaire, but we don’t have private pockets to line. We need to make sure that money helps the city where it came from.”

The announcement was met with considerable applause from protesters, including City Life member John Wyche, who called Arroyo’s proposal a step in the right direction on the local and national level.

“It’s in the preliminary stages, but this is something that is going on across every state,” Wyche said. “I think it has legs because if the people in government such as Arroyo say to these banks, ‘Listen, you’ve got our billion dollars, what are you giving back to the community?’, they are going to listen.”

City Life was formed in 1973 and focused largely on housing justice for tenants until 2006, when organizers and legal representatives noticed a sharp increase in bank foreclosure cases on housing court dockets, particularly in neighborhoods like Dorchester, Mattapan, Roxbury, and East Boston. 

Since then, City Life executive director Curdina Hill and other organizers have turned their attention almost strictly towards preventing bank foreclosures. They typically organize actions on a case-by-case basis by providing legal aid and support for homeowners who continue to occupy homes they feel are being seized illegally by creditors. City Life also organizes rallies — like the one on Monday— calling for banks to offer homeowners principle reductions over loan modifications - a move that would alter mortgage values to reflect the actual value of a home, rather than decreasing the amount of a mortgage banks expect a homeowner to pay on a monthly basis.

While Hill said efforts like Monday’s rally are part of what she expects to be a drawn-out campaign to change financial and political policies in favor of homeowners, she said the shared front between MassUniting and a growing partnership with members of the Occupy movement are indicators that the public is ready to hold financial institutions accountable.

“I think we are at a unique political moment now,” Hill said. “There’s now a message and a framework that really helps people be able to surface with what they are feeling, about being in a system that rewards corporations but doesn’t ask the same civic responsibility as the rest of us.

“I think it’s really raising a question if this financial system is serving the people. There’s a lot of messaging and movement forming that centers on the fact that something is wrong here.”