Sunday, December 13, 2009

Homeowners in Denial? Foreclosure Mediation Program needs to wake up!

An article in today's News Journal really got me mad. In it, Eric Ruth writes that homeowners don't access the Delaware Foreclosure Mediation program - which is designed to help homeowners facing foreclosure - because they are "in denial." Apparently officials who run the program believe the silly homeowners they want to help think they are ostriches - sticking their heads in the sand hoping the threat of losing their homes will go away if they do nothing.

Are they out of their minds? When will these policy makers look at the process instead of blaming the homeowners caught in the middle?

These programs demand homeowners have a perfect credit score to obtain assistance. Yet by the time your home is in foreclosure, your credit score is anything but perfect. One missed credit card payment made to pay your mortgage bill lands your credit score spiraling downward far below any levels that would allow you to take advantage of the program. Add to this the routine slight-of-hand tricks credit card issuers are using to push people into delinquency and the picture becomes even more dismal.

Rather than question why homeowners aren't taking advantage of this program, better to question what a credit score has to do with helping fighting home foreclosure. Rather than assume people with low credit scores aren't deserving of help or can't manage their funds, where is the thorough investigation of the banking industry, and the ways in which they force decent, hardworking, but struggling, individuals into foreclosure.

Homeowners in foreclosure aren't in denial. They are tired of being pawns in an endless game where the only winners are the banks determined to make all they can on kicking people out of their homes.

Link to Delaware Emergency Mortgage Assistance Program (DEMAP)
http://www.destatehousing.com/services/hb_demap.shtml

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