New York State Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman announced that his office is committing up to $40 million in additional funding to organizations that provide free, high-quality housing counseling and legal services to struggling homeowners around New York State through his Homeowner Protection Program (HOPP). The new funding, which will extend the program for an additional two years, brings the total commitment of funds by the Attorney General’s Office to $100 million over five years to help New York families stay in their homes. The HOPP program is designed to provide free housing counseling and legal services to homeowners facing foreclosure—and particularly to ensure that no New Yorkers has to navigate the treacherous loan modification or foreclosure process alone. Of the 34,000 families helped by HOPP since 2012, thousands of families have been able to stay in their homes.
Since it was established in 2012, HOPP has allocated funding to 89 legal services and housing counseling agencies working in every county in New York. At the Center for Housing Solutions Regional Summit in New Windsor, and the annual conference of the New York State Coalition for Excellence in Homeownership Education in Albany, Attorney General Schneiderman announced the additional funds and discussed findings in his new report, “Staying Home: A Report on the Second Year of New York Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman’s Homeowner Protection Program.” In the program’s first two years, more than 9,303 homeowners, close to one third of those helped, found the program by calling the HOPP hotline, at (855) HOME-456.
“After just two years, our Homeowner Protection Program has helped tens of thousands of New Yorkers in danger of losing their homes. This additional $40 million dollars extends my commitment to help homeowners and communities across New York recover from the devastating impact of the housing crisis,” Attorney General Schneiderman said. “No individual or family should have to navigate the foreclosure process alone. By funding housing counseling and legal services, we are keeping families in their homes and stabilizing struggling communities across the state of New York.”
The report shows that the areas hardest-hit by the mortgage crisis were low- and moderate-income neighborhoods in major population centers, including New York City, Long Island, the Hudson Valley and several upstate cities, including Troy and Buffalo. It also found that the majority of those who sought assistance from the HOPP network came from households with children—including almost 5,800 single-parent households—underscoring the deep impact the mortgage crisis has had on families across New York State.
In October 2012, the Attorney General’s Office launched HOPP, with a three-year commitment of $60 million, to fund housing counseling and legal services for struggling New York homeowners. HOPP counselors provide at-risk mortgage holders with a range of services, including direct advocacy with lenders, financial counseling and assistance in preparing the complex documentation that homeowners need to submit applications for loan modifications. This process often results in lower monthly mortgage payments and prevents foreclosures from going forward—but the process can take more than a year to negotiate.
The report, which covers HOPP services provided between October 2012 and September 2014, shows that families across the state have benefited from the HOPP program. Regional break downs of families served are as follows:
►Hudson Valley: More than 5,000 families served.
►New York City: More than 12,000 families served.
►Monroe County and its surrounding areas: More than 2,000 families served.
►Mid Central New York: More than 1,700 families served.
►Capital and Northern New York: More than 1,400 families served.
►Long Island: More than 8,800 families served.
►Buffalo and its surrounding areas: More than 2,100 families served.
