Nearly 6,000 Oregon families are awaiting word that they’ve qualified for aid from the Oregon Homeownership Stabilization Initiative.
Nearly 6,000 Oregon families are awaiting word that they’ve qualified for aid from the Oregon Homeownership Stabilization Initiative.
The federally funded foreclosure-prevention program pays mortgages and property taxes for 12 months for families in the hardest-hit states.
When homeowners were provisionally accepted for the program in December and January, “we were looking at folks who had pretty much reached the end of their rope,” says Lisa Joyce, policy and communications manager for the state Department of Housing and Community Service.
People had to show they had lost jobs or income during the Great Recession, were earning no more than 20 percent higher than the median income and had only enough cash or savings to cover four months’ house payments or less.
If the program is successful, it could be a lifeline to keep families in their homes until the job market improves. It also could prevent as many foreclosures in Oregon as the Obama administration’s top foreclosure-prevention program, the Making Home Affordable, or HAMP initiative, Cusack says.
Read more at The Portland Tribune.
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