Foreclosure workshop finds way to ‘ground zero’

In a city viewed as "ground zero" in the national foreclosure crisis, Las Vegas homeowners can use all the help they can get to avoid losing their homes to the banks.

Roughly one in every 13 homes in Las Vegas is in some stage of foreclosure, even with the passage of the Obama administration's Making Home Affordable program, a $75 billion plan to help homeowners refinance or modify their mortgage payments.

More than 3 million homeowners nationwide are at least 60 days past due on their mortgage, and millions of others want to know if they're eligible for support, said Faith Schwartz, executive director of Washington, D.C.-based Hope Now.

That's why some 2,400 to 4,000 homeowners at risk of foreclosure are expected to attend a two-day workshop in North Las Vegas presented by Hope Now, an alliance of mortgage lenders and counselors offering free assistance for distressed homeowners.

The Hope Now workshops started Friday but continues today from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. in the Scottsdale Ballroom at Aliante Station, 7300 Aliante Parkway.

Representatives from mortgage companies, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and Housing and Urban Development-approved counselors will answer questions and work with distressed homeowners on possible solutions.

"It's been very effective, but the problem is becoming much larger," Schwartz said of Hope Now, which helped 249,000 homeowners stay in their homes in May. "Actual foreclosures have remained steady versus last year, but the starts (preforeclosure filings) are up, so the pipelines are big."

In Nevada, nearly 33,000 homeowners avoided foreclosure between July 2007 and April, according to Hope Now. About 22,000 of them received repayment plans and 17,150 received loan modifications.

Mandy Peacock of AAA Home Rescuers, a private mortgage modification company, said HUD programs tend to be backed up and counselors are not educated. HUD-approved companies are getting too big too fast, as are some for-profit companies, she said.

"We have to have this (for-profit loan modification) industry, as Obama's plan has seen little success," Peacock said. "I had a gentleman who was current on his loan and his bank put him in a deficiency repayment program that made him delinquent so they could put him in the (Making Home Affordable) program to get the incentives, and when his numbers didn't work, they threw him into collections."

Local attorney Ed Bernstein will be discussing a new state law in which homeowners facing foreclosure can request a meeting with lenders and a mediator in an effort to save their homes. The discussion will air on his television show at 4 p.m. Sunday on KVBC-TV, Channel 3.

The Nevada State Supreme Court has adopted rules to govern the program. Chief Justice James Hardesty and Justice Michael Cherry will discuss how the program could benefit Nevada homeowners.

Obama's program was never meant to be an "end-all" solution for everybody, said Alvina McHale, spokeswoman for the U.S. Treasury Department Office of Financial Stability. It was designed to keep people in their homes through refinancing or loan modifications, she said.

So far, 350,000 homeowners have been offered loan modification workouts and 180,000 are going through a trial period.

"We think that's a good start," McHale said.

Contact reporter Hubble Smith at hsmith@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0491.