$200 million
from federal government was given to Nevada to avoid homeowners from losing
their homes. Nevada had the highest
foreclosure rate in the nation but a Reno Gazette-Journal analysis of the fund
distribution confirms that the money was almost intact in the past two years.
Nevada only
spent $21 million of the $194 million it was to be paid to homeowners facing
foreclosure, this means only 11% of the money it received through the Obama
administration’s Hardest Hit Fund, this is according to the most recent reports
of the analysis of U.S. Treasury the third quarter of 2012
“This is
government bureaucracy at its finest,” said Victor Joecks, communication
director of think tank Nevada Policy Research Institute. “They can’t even give
away $200 million. This program is a perfect example of why government
shouldn’t pick winners and losers in the economy.”
According to
Nevada Hardest Hit officials, just in January, the nonprofit gave $7.2 million
in direct aid to help homeowners avoid foreclosure. A total of $28.4 million was given by the
program since it began in mid-2010, which is only 5% of the allocation. More or
less 25 % of what they have given out was given out in January.
Mortgage
assistance and principal reduction are the two separate components of the state
Hardest Hit Fund program that has much given the aid. 75 percent of the budget went to direct aid
from July 2011 to June 2012; this is another analysis of yearly financial
statements obtained directly from the nonprofit.
“We are getting
more money out of the door than we have ever before in a much shorter time
frame,” said Candice Kelley, Nevada Hardest Hit Fund executive director.
Federal help to hardest hit
Many have tried to attend to the
greed and carelessness that caused the housing crisis, they are the Government
programs, public policy changes and a closer eye on financial service providers
yet there are still many homeowners suffering from the collapse of the housing market.
And Hardest Hit
Fund was one of those who are concerned homeowner programs.
Hardest Hit
Fund was launched in 2010 by the Obama Administration mainly to help distraught
homeowners in places that suffers from deep home price declines and high
unemployment. Nevada together with 17
other States and the District of Columbia are getting more than $7.6 billion to
help homeowners prevent foreclosure. The
program ends in 2017.
“What states
have had to do through this program is really unprecedented,” said Andrea
Risotto, spokeswoman for the U.S. Treasury Department. “They have created their
own servicing shop so that they can directly assist homeowners, evaluate them
for help, process their application and help them transition from one form of
assistance to another.”
Each state verifies
what support their residents need, including mortgage assistance, short sales
and unemployment programs.
Out of the $7.6
billion, Nevada was given $194 million. Nevada
Affordable Housing Assistance Corp., a nonprofit organization, was selected to
head the program for the Nevada Housing Division. Mortgage payment assistance,
principal curtailment, short-sale assistance and second lien assistance, are
the types of programs Nevada offers.
The objective
is to lend a hand to more than 10,000 Nevada homeowners avoid foreclosure.
Kelley, the
nonprofit’s executive director said that the program didn’t want to overextend
its allocated fund and needed to process the applications it already had in the
pipeline. This is because the nonprofit
had to stop accepting new applicants in mid-December since of the increase in
the number of Nevadans asking for aid.
She further
added, the Hardest Hit Fund is aggressively working through the current
applications, and the fund will reopen to new applicants.
Nonprofit and
Treasury officials said when much of the first year of the Hardest Hit Fund’s
existence was focused on setting up the infrastructure, staffing and marketing
the program, many people, including mortgage companies and banks, were unaware
of the program and its requirement, making it hard to help distressed
homeowners.
“There are a
number of states where we are still seeing homeowners really reluctant to reach
out for help,” Risotto said.
Both Kelley and
Risotto said that, also those homeowners who did apply early on were discouraged
because they were rejected on eligibility requirements. After that, the program has altered its
eligibility requirements more than a few times to comprise a wider range of
people. Those who were formerly discarded now could meet the criteria if they reapplied.
Nationally,
more than 100,000 homeowners were helped with $1.1 billion of direct assistance
since the program began, Risotto said. About $1.7 billion out of the $7.6
billion has been committed or budgeted to homeowners for future payments.
California,
with the highest allocation of almost $2 billion, has helped more than 22,000
borrowers. North Carolina, Michigan, Ohio and Florida follow, Risotto said.
Joecks, with
the Nevada think tank, said the only people who benefit from the program are
the politicians who use it to generate publicity. The institute is against the
Hardest Hit Fund program because it believes it is unjust, he said.
“It’s a perfect
case study of how the government promises something, and it doesn’t end up
being delivered as promised,” Joecks said.
“The Hardest
Hit Fund rewards those who make poor financial decisions at the expense of
those who make good ones.”
Who did it help?
According to
the latest quarterly performance report the state submitted to the U.S., there
were more than 6,000 applicants in the past two-and-a-half years and more than 2,700
homeowners have been given assistance by the Nevada Hardest Hit Fund since they
are the only ones who qualified. Nearly
all borrowers made less than $50,000 and cited either unemployment or Sharon
Logue applied for the program in August and was approved for principal
reduction assistance in January.
Since six years
ago home prices skyrockets, she bought her Carson City apartment at the peak of
the market because it’s all she could afford that time.
“I thought I
was doing great, but then things just went downhill,” she said.
After another
six years, her home is values 30 percent of what she initially bought it for. Her
mortgage payments make up nearly half of her paychecks after a job change last
year and decrease in salary.
“Right now,
it’s paycheck to paycheck,” she said. “I can’t save any money because I don’t
have any extra money. If there’s an emergency, whip out the credit card and
take care of it later.”
Logue makes her
payment every month and is looking into ways to stay in her home.
“Usually, I
don’t ask for handouts,” she said. “I’m very stubborn and have my pride, but
there are just some times you have to put those aside and ask for help to make
life better.”
Her loan
servicer was not able to help her either because of restrictions in her private
mortgage insurance. You must get PMI when the down payment is less than 20
percent of the value or sales prices.
Then she discovered Hardest Hit Fund in August.
“I didn’t want
to foreclose,” she said. “To me, that’s not right.”
She found that
the Hardest Hit Fund staff was helpful.
She was given
$50,000 in January in principal reductions but she has run into the same PMI
roadblock as she did when she tried to refinance. Every the bank representatives told her that
she is blocked from any action because of who the PMI is with or the type of
PMI.
Now she is finding
other banks that might take on her loan.
“I’m at a
block,” she said. “ ... Something needs to happen or else I’ll be stuck.”
She is
determined not to get foreclosure although she has until May to obtain the
financing to use the Hardest Hit Fund.
“It’s like
right there,” she said. “I have their certificate, but now, I’m stuck.”
Middle of the pack, but not for long
Even as Nevada spends
its share of the federal money to help homeowners slowly, it falls in the
middle of the pack for the 18 states and Washington, D.C., that also received
money through the Hardest Hit Fund.
Oregon had
spent about 40 percent of its allocation which is $88.7 million by end of the
third quarter in 2012. This is the
latest date provided by the U.S. Department of Treasury. Washington, D.C. Rhode Island on the other hand, according to
the RGJ analysis, follows by using more than 30 percent of their money.
Arizona is the
state slowest to spend, only $11.6 million was spent which is 4 percent of its
$268 million. 6 percent of their share was
spent by New Jersey, Georgia and Indiana.
According to
the administration responsible for the money in Nevada, the said slowness of distributing
the funds to responsible people who need the funds and stabilize the economy is
sensible. But Joecks sees otherwise, they
have had three years to develop a more efficient process.
Joecks also countered
the program for only helping rareness of underwater homeowners in Nevada.
That’s not enough to make a difference in the overall housing market, he said
According to
the latest data released by real estate data provider CoreLogic in January, the
total value of all U.S. homes with negative equity during the third quarter of
2012 was $658 billion.
“States have to
make decisions about how to balance helping homeowners and protecting taxpayers
because it’s a government-funded program,” Risotto said. “All the states have
been looking closely at their data that they are gaining from the first months
of their program implementation and trying to make smart decisions about who is
still struggling in their state and how they can best reach them to prevent
foreclosure.”
The Hardest Hit
Fund is just one tool in a host of other offerings to help distressed
homeowners, U.S. Treasury officials said.
“It is a
targeted program to help address some of the needs struggling home owners are
facing in these states,” Risotto said. “It is meant to complement many of the
other efforts federal and state governments already have under way and that
mortgage companies, themselves, are offering today, that they weren’t even
offering a year ago.”
Lately, the help
to distressed homeowners sped up, the nonprofit Nevada Hardest Hit Fund has its
distribution of U.S. Treasury funds a bit more faster.
“We are trying
to be appropriately conservative with administrative costs,” Kelley said. “We
want to make sure we have the right people on hand so that we can quickly
respond to these applicants.”
In answer to
the boost in applications this year, the Nevada Hardest Hit Fund gave jobs to more
than 40 people. It has nearly tripled that number through community
partnerships to process the applications.
Before the
application process was put on hold in mid-December for those already in the
pipeline, the nonprofit was getting at least 800 phone calls a day, Kelly said.
She was unable to say how many borrowers currently are in the application
process.
With the
current trajectory of funds being approved, she said, hey will allocate all of
the $194 million before the 2017 deadline.
“We suspect
that the future outlays for the months to come will continue to be more and
more aggressive because the demand is there,” she said. “We have expanded out
partnerships so that we can respond in a faster way.”
The
participating states expect that they will have spent a majority of the
allocated funds by 2014, three years ahead of schedule, Risotto said. Rhode
Island closed its application process in January, because it already has
committed all of its funds. Several other states are expected to close this
year also.
“We are all
very committed to getting the assistance out of the door as quickly as possible
while the need is still so great,” she said.
