“This grant will improve our capacity to see more people more quickly,” said Nancy Davison, HAC vice president of operations.
A total of $4 million in HomeCorps grants was awarded to 18 organizations across the Commonwealth to help address the foreclosure crisis, Attorney General Martha Coakley announced. The grant funding will assist homeowners and renters impacted by the foreclosure crisis, revitalize distressed and blighted neighborhoods, and guard against future financial harm. The funding is the result of a nationwide settlement involving the nation’s five largest mortgage servicers and their connection with unlawful foreclosures and loan servicing.
The Crisis Response Innovation Grants, a component of AG Coakley’s HomeCorps program, support a wide variety of foreclosure prevention and mitigation services across the Commonwealth. They are the latest in a series of HomeCorps Partnership Grants that fund loan modification assistance, free direct legal representation to distressed borrowers and post foreclosure stabilization assistance to families, as well as efforts to help communities recover from the foreclosure crisis by addressing abandoned housing and mitigating neighborhood blight.
“Our economy will never fully recover until we address the impact of the foreclosure crisis,” AG Coakley said. “These grants are designed to help strengthen struggling communities, provide direct assistance to distressed borrowers, and avoid unnecessary foreclosures. The organizations receiving these funds are doing work that is a critical part of those efforts.”
Funding for the these grants comes from the $44.5 million in funds obtained for Massachusetts as part of the national settlement with Bank of America, JP Morgan Chase, Wells Fargo, Citigroup and GMAC/Ally. According to the settlement signed in April by a federal judge, the banks are also ordered to provide an estimated $14.6 million in cash payments to Bay State borrowers and $257 million worth of mortgage relief across the Commonwealth.
The addition of a foreclosure-prevention counseling coordinator at HAC will improve the initial inquiry response time, address the increased demand for counseling services daily, facilitate documentation between the homeowner and the servicer, and allow HAC’s three foreclosure-prevention counselors more time to provide additional counseling services, including financial management.
