bobbyw24
02-26-2010, 03:24 PM
Obama Charged With Prioritizing Lenders Above Homeowners
One year after the Obama administration launched its $75 billion anti-foreclosure program, the housing market remains volatile, loan modifications have been scant, foreclosures are still sky-high — and more and more lawmakers are wondering why the White House hasn’t been more aggressive in tackling the crisis.
Administration efforts to stabilize the troubled housing market have prioritized lenders above struggling homeowners, a number of House Democrats charged Thursday, leading to thousands of foreclosures that might otherwise have been prevented — and threatening thousands more in the months to come.
Although the Obama White House has offered billions of dollars to banks that successfully alter loans to make them more affordable, only 116,00 of those modifications have been made permanent, the Treasury Department reported last week. Meanwhile, nearly 3 million homes went into foreclosure in 2009 alone. The reason for the discrepancy, some Democrats contend, is clear: The decision to modify loans, under Obama’s programs, has been left in the hands of the same mortgage servicing companies that often stand to profit more from foreclosures. That conflict of interest, critics say, all but ensures that the administration’s voluntary modification program will fail.
“The industry that received a trillion dollar bailout,” Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio), head of the Oversight Committee’s Domestic Policy subpanel, charged Thursday, “has been unwilling to absorb the losses, to write down bad debts, and their recalcitrance is holding up the resolution of the foreclosure crisis.”
He’s right about at least one thing:
http://washingtonindependent.com/77740/democrats-demand-more-relief-for-troubled-housing-market
One year after the Obama administration launched its $75 billion anti-foreclosure program, the housing market remains volatile, loan modifications have been scant, foreclosures are still sky-high — and more and more lawmakers are wondering why the White House hasn’t been more aggressive in tackling the crisis.
Administration efforts to stabilize the troubled housing market have prioritized lenders above struggling homeowners, a number of House Democrats charged Thursday, leading to thousands of foreclosures that might otherwise have been prevented — and threatening thousands more in the months to come.
Although the Obama White House has offered billions of dollars to banks that successfully alter loans to make them more affordable, only 116,00 of those modifications have been made permanent, the Treasury Department reported last week. Meanwhile, nearly 3 million homes went into foreclosure in 2009 alone. The reason for the discrepancy, some Democrats contend, is clear: The decision to modify loans, under Obama’s programs, has been left in the hands of the same mortgage servicing companies that often stand to profit more from foreclosures. That conflict of interest, critics say, all but ensures that the administration’s voluntary modification program will fail.
“The industry that received a trillion dollar bailout,” Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio), head of the Oversight Committee’s Domestic Policy subpanel, charged Thursday, “has been unwilling to absorb the losses, to write down bad debts, and their recalcitrance is holding up the resolution of the foreclosure crisis.”
He’s right about at least one thing:
http://washingtonindependent.com/77740/democrats-demand-more-relief-for-troubled-housing-market