Advocate's view on HOPE NOW hotline

By Alan White

Last week, the Wall Street Journal ran an article about the HOPE NOW foreclosure help hotline. HOPE NOW is an alliance of six large mortgage servicers, mortgage and securities industry trade groups, Neighborworks, the Homeownership Preservation Foundation and other nonprofits. It operates a toll-free number for homeowners, has done some mass mailings, and has issued some reports on workouts and loan modifications by its members. The WSJ reported that HOPE NOW got 176,000 calls in the past two months. It recommended a workout for 9,975, another 12,113 were referred for other counseling services, and 4,410 were told to sell their homes. We don't know what happened to the other 150,000.

My friend Mark Wiseman, who is in the front lines of the foreclosure battle, serving as foreclosure prevention director for Cuyahoga County (Cleveland OH), wrote a letter to the WSJ, portions of which the Journal ran yesterday. Mark was kind enough to send me the full text of his letter (Download) which includes details left out of the edited version and which is highly critical of HOPE NOW and the Administration's foreclosure plan (or lack thereof).