More Help for Unemployed Homeowners

[babylonsister]

More Help for Unemployed Homeowners
By Annie Lowrey 8/11/10 2:52 PM


Today, the Obama administration announced it will spend $3 billion more to help jobless homeowners.

First, the Department of Housing and Urban Development is starting up the Emergency Homeowners Loan Program, created in the Wall Street reform bill. The program helps the unemployed pay their mortgages by providing interest-free loans of up to $50,000. Borrowers can use the funds to pay their “mortgage principal, interest, mortgage insurance, taxes and hazard insurance” for up to two years or until they find work.

To qualify, homeowners need to be at least three months behind on their mortgage payments, demonstrate the ability to resume payments within two years, live in their home, own only one home and have a good history of paying bills. HUD did not say which states or cities it will offer the program in.

Second, the Treasury Department is expanding its Hardest Hit Fund, which provides direct mortgage aid to the jobless in states with high unemployment rates. The fund is already working in Arizona, California, Florida, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Ohio, Oregon, Rhode Island and South Carolina. Now, homeowners in Alabama, Illinois, Kentucky, Mississippi and New Jersey are also eligible.

more...

http://washingtonindependent.com/94487/more-help-for-unemployed-homeowners

[leveymg]

1. Step in the right direction, but needs to be expanded nationally with 10 times

the current funding level. 3 million face foreclosure this year.

[Lance_Boyle]

2. How can an unemployed person looking for work

"demonstrate the ability to resume payments within two years?" Doesn't that more or less require that they show income? Seems like a major catch-22.

[Kdillard]

3. k and r. This is a good thing.

[one_voice]

4. Good news...

moving in the right direction.

[Clio the Leo]

5. ROBERTGIBBS! ROBERTGIBBS! ROBERTGIBBS!!!!

(maybe that will help this thread get more attention!)

[ProgressOnTheMove]

6. All these things out the window should the GOP return, so nicer to avoid that.

[4_TN_TITANS]

7. pay their “mortgage interest.. mortgage insurance, taxes and hazard insurance”

Another fuckin bank bailout. The government should only guarentee a principal payment and make the banks eat the rest themselves.