Freddie Mac helps borrowers through foreclosure crisisMortgagePress.comsub-prime borrowers, educate and advise borrowers, obtain workouts
Deploys $10.5 million in grants
Freddie Mac announced
$10.5 million in grants to housing counseling organizations to use
for their outreach, education and foreclosure prevention efforts to
help borrowers.
The grants will enable the non-profit organizations to add and
train staff, pay operational expenses, and support outreach
campaigns to borrowers having difficulty making their mortgage
payments, especially sub-prime borrowers. The organizations were
selected for their abilities to educate and advise borrowers about
their foreclosure options and/or help them obtain workouts from
their mortgage servicers.
The largest share of the funds will be administered through the
Enterprise Community Partners, NeighborWorks America, the Metropolitan Washington Council of
Governments and HomeFree
USA.
"Although the challenges facing today's housing market go beyond
any one company's ability to resolve, Freddie Mac is working with
the non-profit organizations, which are in the trenches, to make a
real difference for many of America's borrowers," said Richard F.
Syron, CEO and chairman of Freddie Mac. "By putting another piece
of that plan into place, [this] announcement underscores how
Freddie Mac's mission to expand homeownership includes helping
delinquent borrowers avoid foreclosure whenever possible."
The $10.5 million in funding disbursements is the result of the
November settlement between the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise
Oversight and former Freddie Mac CEO Leland Brendsel.
The announcement builds on Freddie Mac's efforts to help
distressed borrowers by fostering mortgage workouts that enable
them to avoid foreclosure. Last year, because of Freddie Mac and
the mortgage servicers it works with, almost 50,000 families that
had run into financial trouble were able to keep their homes.
Freddie Mac currently is working out roughly 1,000 loans per week,
where 90 percent of the affected families keep their homes.
For more information, visit www.freddiemac.com.
