Launched by the White House in October to head off a rising tide of home foreclosures, the Hope Now Alliance said this week that it has helped over a million troubled borrowers trying to keep their homes. But critics of the program say it’s not clear how many of those homes will be saved over the long run.Now, with foreclosures still rising, calls for a broader government and industry response are coming from community groups, consumer advocates, members of Congress and, most recently, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke.
“It’s mostly a lot of hope and unfortunately not a lot of accomplishment at the moment,” said John Taylor, CEO of the National Community Reinvestment Coalition, which works with community groups to help homeowners. “I think there’s a great deal of exaggeration about what the impact has been. The real measure is: How are the foreclosure rates doing? The truth is the foreclosure numbers continue to rise.”
Fresh evidence of the deteriorating outlook came Thursday in a report showing that mortgage delinquencies - homeowners who are falling behind on their payments - rose to the highest levels in 23 years in the last three months of 2007. Borrowers who are delinquent for more than 30 days risk falling into default, which is the earliest state of the foreclosure process.
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