"These organizations are on the front lines of helping families who are desperate to remain in their homes," said Donovan. "Now, more than ever, it’s crucial that we support these agencies that are working with struggling families on a one-to-one basis to manage their money, navigate the homebuying process, and secure their financial futures."
Housing counseling grants will assist families in becoming first-time homeowners and remaining homeowners after their purchase. HUD-approved counseling agencies not only provide homeownership counseling, but also offer financial literacy training to renters and homeless individuals and families.
"Now, more than ever, it is crucial that Americans better understand how to manage their money, navigate the homebuying process, and secure their financial future." said Donovan. "This critical funding will help counseling organizations continue to assist families in making more informed choices before they purchase a home and counsel families facing foreclosure."
Nearly $68 million will support the direct provision of housing counseling services by 24 national and regional organizations, 5 multi-state organizations, and 484 state and local housing counseling agencies. In addition, HUD is awarding more than $5 million to three national organizations to train approximately 4,500 counselors who will receive the instruction and certification necessary to effectively assist families with their housing needs.
National and regional agencies distribute much of HUD’s housing counseling grant funding to community-based grassroots organizations that provide advice and guidance to low- and moderate-income families seeking to improve their housing conditions. In addition, these larger organizations help improve the quality of housing counseling services and enhance coordination among other counseling providers.
Counseling agencies will use $9.5 million to help assist senior citizens seeking reverse mortgages or Home Equity Conversion Mortgages (HECM). These agencies will provide counseling for the rapidly growing number of elderly homeowners who seek to convert equity in their homes into income that can be used to pay for home improvements, medical costs, and other living expenses.
The organizations that provide housing counseling services help people become or remain homeowners or find rental housing, and assist homeless persons in finding the transitional housing they need to move toward a permanent place to live. Grant recipients also help homebuyers and homeowners realistically evaluate their readiness for a home purchase, understand their financing and downpayment options, and navigate what can be an extremely confusing and difficult process.
In addition, grantees help combat predatory lending by helping unwary borrowers review their loan documentation, and avoid potential mortgage scams, unreasonably high interest rates, inflated appraisals, unaffordable repayment terms, and other conditions that can result in a loss of equity, increased debt, default, and even foreclosure. Likewise, foreclosure prevention counseling helps homeowners facing delinquency or default employ strategies, including expense reduction, negotiation with lenders and loan servicers, and loss mitigation, to avoid foreclosure. With foreclosures at critical levels nationwide, these services are more important than ever.
HUD awards annual grants under the housing counseling program through a competitive process. Organizations that apply for grants must be HUD-approved and are subject to performance reviews to maintain their HUD-approved status.
ACORN payoff alert!
More wealth redistribution. Money stolen from productive people that wont help anyone but the liberal art majors who will get a paycheck for shuffling papers.
We know what this is about. Just another way of taking money from those who earn it and giving it to those who vote democrat.
This guy is not doing much Christmas shopping. He’s too busy sneaking marxist rules past the American people while they have dreams of sugar plums and the man with the red cap.
It's not barely worth mentioning.
More ACORN money for leftist groups!!
This is how the left gets funded, from government.
We used to call them "priests," but kept them on a tight leash so to speak.
This administration knows no bounds.
The HUD site has links by state at the bottom:
For a list of all grants, organized by state, visit HUD’s website.
http://portal.hud.gov/hudportal/documents/huddoc?id=recommended_awards.pdf
For summary of each grant, organized by state, visit HUD’s website.
http://portal.hud.gov/hudportal/documents/huddoc?id=housing_grant_descriptions.pdf
And after all this money is wasted, the banks will still be making mortgage loans to people who can't afford it.
What a screwed up country we live in. Glad I'm old and my place is paid for.
The 111th Congress Is Over !
I knew someone that lost their job and tried to call HUD and HUD local offices for assistance in a loan modification; as at the same time fraud was committed on the FHA loan. Escrow was at zero balance shortly after closing; it had gone through 3 banks...
Anyway... there was no help just a daily, constant recording from a AA woman saying they were out of the office. My friend pictured this woman making a nice salary doing nothing...
This money is a slush fund and an ACORN/Farrakhan whoever else Obama owes payoff. No one will investigate even after he leaves office. DARE anyone investigate they MAY be called racist or get audited.
Many of the grantees are political activist “affordable housing advocacy” organizations who, for purposes of obtaining funding for their political agenda, double as “mortgage counseling” outfits.
The entire process has nothing to do with housing or “the poor”; its about funding Leftist activists on money taken from the taxpayers.
The list, ping
Let me know if you would like to be on or off the ping list
Jobs for community organizers!
Free money! Free beer for all!
Stupid, damned,evil regime!
and America takes another one in the........
How did we ever survive without socialism?
I just can't comprehend not getting help buying something with the money I didn't have to earn while surviving by eating the food a counselor shows me to eat before I am counseled on the least dangerous ways to sleep and then seeing a counselor to treat me for the bad dreams that I had about destroying the earth because of my poor attitude toward nature that I am waiting in line to get counseled for before I go to the unemployment office to look for a job my other counselor determined was best suited for me to keep me healthy for the lady chosen for me by my marriage counselor so I don't have to worry about divorce and wind up needing a worry counselor.
Thank God for socialism in a free society!
The first red flag should be phrases like “housing counselling” and counselling training-—two pairs of adjectives/nouns that both end in ‘ing’. Which means they are designed to go on forever..........
Hope we get a chance to do a cost/benefit analysis on this
which will prove to be as counterproductive as everything else, and just another of a thousand back-door conduits through which to distribute the diminishing ‘wealth’.