A government official announced on Wednesday that the Emergency Homeowner Loan Program (EHLP) won’t assist all 30,000 homeowners as originally intended. The $1 billion federal program is expected to help in the ballpark of 10,000 to 15,000 financially-strapped homeowners avoid foreclosure before ending.
Borrowers Struggle to Qualify for EHLP
The Department of Housing and Urban Development, which is running the EHLP, has until Friday to hand out $1 billion to homeowners in 32 states and Puerto Rico. The money would provide borrowers with up to $50,000 to make monthly mortgage payments (including principal, interest, taxes and insurance).
Officials say HUD has been struggling to get the job done, however, because many applicants of the program are being rejected. Reasons for rejection include being unemployed or underemployed due to economic or medical hardship, facing foreclosure or at least 90 days delinquent on mortgage payments.
If the money is not distributed, the leftover funds will go back to the U.S. Treasury and more than half of intended recipients will not be helped.
HUD Pushes to Extend the Emergency Homeowners Loan Program
Critics of the program say it could have done a better job of meeting its goal if had launched sooner, been properly advertised and made adjustments to ensure more people could meet the application deadline.
Though the program was created last year, HUD didn’t begin taking applications until June with a quick pre-screening deadline in July.
HUD extended the deadline a couple of times to get more applicants, but most homeowners found they still did not have enough time to get their paperwork together and therefore, didn’t have a chance to be considered.
HUD says it doesn’t want the program’s funds to go to waste. To ensure more homeowners are helped, HUD says it’s working with several senators to see if the deadline can be extended.
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Has anyone been approved? So far I haven’t heard of anyone who applied being accepted including myself. We met all of the qualifications as my spouse was laid off and I suffered a heart attack. During our first round of paper work we were told our house payment was not excessive enough to met guidelines because our bank didn’t do escrow. The counselor spoke to our lender who agreed to begin escrowing and the counselor then said we qualified. Next thing we know that counseling agency is told to stop processing ehlp cases and some company out of Michigan took over our case. After speaking with 3 different agents in that office and hundreds of pages of the same application paperwork being faxed repeatedly we were told we now have an official file and would have a determination by the end of the week.
That was over a month ago and now we can’t get anyone to email us back OR to answer the phone. We have no idea what is going on just that our bank has finally run out of patience as they had demanded our note to be paid in full in July but let us slide because we were working with this program. We have been processing this loan paperwork for a total of over 4 months now. If anyone has gotten a loan with this program please speak up. We are beginning to think this was a big hoax and no one received the loans. Our bank has the opinion that there should be a list of recipients available for viewing. Maybe they are right. How do we know if this money has even been disbursed for it’s intended purpose since there seems to be no one accountable to answer for it.
Same story here, I don’t think that they have approved anyone. My husband was hurt on the job and I was laid off. Got all my paper work sent in three time and never got a answer. A month later I got someone on the phone and they told me that I did not qualify and that should have got a letter but that she did not see when the letter was sent out too me. She really could not explain to me why I did not qualify, just that I did not meet some kind of ratio…..but I meet all of the qualification to apply??? If I don’t qualify in my current status who do.