Housing counselors scrambling after funding source is lost
Local agencies that provide counseling for homeowners facing foreclosure are scrambling to find new funding sources after learning that state and federal money set aside for the services has run out.
The cuts, counselors say, leave homeowners without support during the foreclosure process and open to scam artists who prey on vulnerable people scared of losing their homes.
“One of my biggest concerns, knowing all this funding is going away, (is that) a lot of the scams are probably going to pick up because people aren’t going to get the free services that were out there,” said Marci Polekoff, a housing counselor with the Bucks County Housing Group. “They’re grasping for straws trying to find somebody to help them. They’re not going to be educated not to (fall for scams).”
The Pennsylvania Housing Finance Agency, which funnels state and federal aid to housing counselors, told agencies last month that funding would run out June 30 for all counseling services conducting under its Foreclosure Mitigation Counseling Initiative, and for one-on-one default and delinquency counseling services through its Comprehensive Housing Counseling Initiative.
The one-on-one counseling helped homeowners make decisions about their finances and, if possible, work with their mortgage lenders to modify their loans, counselors said.
“Homeowners in this particular economic crisis, they can use all the help they can get,” said Joan Reading, president of the Credit Counseling Center in Richboro. “When you’re not funding additional counseling for the homeowner, it makes it more difficult for the homeowner to address their already difficult financial situation.”
In a memo, the PHFA said it asked for more than $8 million to pay for counseling services over a 14-month period; it received just over $3 million.
“Unfortunately, the demand for these types of counseling services here in Pennsylvania has already far exceeded the amount of funding received,” the agency said in the memo, which was dated June 17.
PHFA also has told its agencies that funding to process applications for another foreclosure program, the Homeowner’s Emergency Mortgage Assistance Program, ran out July 1.
Until new sources of funding are found, agencies are focusing on the Emergency Homeowners Loan Program, which offers bridge loans to help homeowners catch up on their mortgages. But the program isn’t open to everyone — homeowners must have experienced a “substantial” loss of at least 15 percent of their income due to unemployment or underemployment related directly to the economy or a medical condition. And money for that program is set to run out this fall.
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“Homeowners in this particular economic crisis, they can use all the help they can get,” said Joan Reading, president of the Credit Counseling Center in Richboro. “When you're not funding additional counseling for the homeowner, it makes it more
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ClearPoint Credit Counseling Solutions, a provider of retreat housing loan counseling, has finished a join up with Consumer Credit Counseling Service of New York and will go on to run beneath the ClearPoint name.
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