Federal Bank Hostsworkshop for Foreclosure Prevention
Federal Home Loan Bank grants low cost mortgage loans to member banks and other credit bodies. On 9th February from 9 am to 12.30 pm the Federal Home Loan Bank of San Francisco sponsored a workshop aimed at prevention of foreclosures. The venue of the meet was at Faith Presbyterian Church, Webster Street. This was the first of its kind on East Bay. Similar ones have been held in Las Vegas. Congressman Barbara Lee (D-California) was special guest. Amongst the other participants were Assemblyman Sandre Swanson(D-Oakland) Dwight Alexander of Federal Home Loan Bank San Francisco and Maeye Elise Brown of Oakland’s Housing and Economic Rights Advocates.
The workshop brought together many non-profit counseling agencies in the Oakland region as well advocates involved in Housing and Economic Rights, many institutions connected with banks and representatives of Oakland city. The general aim was to educate and make the people aware of the implications of foreclosures.
The workshop follows a new programme related to house ownership preservation and subsidy launched by the Federal Home Loan Bank. The target group was the low to modest income house owners who were at risk of losing their houses because of increase in mortgage rates. $10 million has been set aside for this and will be made available to its member banks to enable them to modify loans and make these fixed for 30 years. The programme has been laid out in such a manner that for every $2 put in by the member bank, the home loan bank will put in $1. The maximum limit is $25,000. The whole exercise is meant for those whose outstanding balance is not above $417,000. Approved in January this plan will become effective from March 2008 and might be able to reach 1,000 house owners.
One of the participants of the Oakland workshop was IndyMac Bank. But many other lenders did not want their names to be disclosed. Lenders are trying to gear up their sections dealing with matters related to foreclosures, modifications and other credit loss issues. For this new training will be required – the challenge being on a gigantic scale. The approach must be balanced and no use over reaching and contacting those that cannot be accommodated.
