Congress try to help homeowners in trouble

WASHINGTON — Can’t afford your mortgage payment? If the bank won’t take your call, your member of Congress just might.

Several lawmakers whose districts are drowning in foreclosures are taking unprecedented steps to help people stay in their homes, including picking up the phone themselves to negotiate with banks on behalf of their constituents.

The pain of being put on hold for an eternity can be an educating experience for a member of Congress.

As a body, Congress has failed to come up with a broad fix for the foreclosure crisis. So some lawmakers are helping homeowners one at a time and seeking creative ways to make a difference in their districts.

Rep. Elijah Cummings, a Maryland Democrat whose Baltimore district has been walloped by unemployment, arranged for 19 banks to set up shop at Morgan State University on Saturday to work with homeowners struggling to pay their mortgages.


Foreclosure tsunami?
Cummings is asking people to come to his anti-foreclosure fair with recent pay stubs, tax returns, their monthly budget and any late notices or foreclosure threats they’ve received by their banks.
He predicted 500 people would show up, a turnout he hopes will help convince the White House that federal money is needed to bailout homeowners directly.

"We may very well be reaching the point of a tsunami of foreclosures,” he said.

342,000 U.S. properties fell into foreclosure in April, with 96,500 of those filings — more than one in four — in California, according to RealtyTrac, a Web-based company that compiles data for most U.S. counties.

Last month, Republicans and conservative Democrats defeated a proposal by Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., that would have given judges the power to lower mortgage payments for people declaring bankruptcy.


Offering hope
President Barack Obama had once promised to help push the measure through Congress but backed off after banks warned that it would devastate the industry.
In the end, Obama signed a "Hope for Homeowners” bill that makes it easier for people to qualify for a program featuring government-insured mortgages. That program, however, relies on voluntary participation by lenders and so far has been largely unsuccessful.

Treasury officials say the program needs more time.



by the associated press