To prevent homeowners from becoming homeless due to foreclosure, the City initiated the Residential Mortgage Foreclosure Prevention Program, an innovative program that links a Court of Common Pleas order requiring that homeowners facing foreclosure have an opportunity to meet with their lenders to negotiate an alternative to foreclosure with City-funded housing counseling, outreach, a hotline and legal assistance. Working together, the City and the Court have created and implemented a national model. - SaveYourHomePhilly Hotline - To help keep Philadelphians in their homes, the City supports a hotline that enables homeowners to seek assistance as soon as they begin to have mortgage problems. At the SaveYourHomePhilly hotline (215-334-HOME), trained operators evaluate callers’ needs and make appointments with housing counselors or make other referrals. Since the hotline began focusing on foreclosure prevention (its previous focus was on anti-predatory lending), the City has promoted it with inserts into utility bills, public service announcements, and through the outreach efforts outlined below. Philadelphia Legal Assistance manages and staffs the SaveYourHomePhilly hotline. - Foreclosure Prevention Outreach - A roadblock to saving the homes of households facing foreclosure is the paralysis many homeowners feel upon receiving a foreclosure notice. To combat that inertia the City funds proactive outreach to provide information on the services available to homeowners as early in the process as possible. Utilizing its network of Neighborhood Advisory Committees and select citywide organizations, the City supports door-to-door outreach to educate homeowners about their rights in the foreclosure process, the availability of housing counseling and legal support, and the SaveYourHomePhilly hotline through which homeowners can begin to access these services. - Housing Counseling - A key element of the success of the Foreclosure Prevention Program is that every homeowner is matched with an OHCD-funded housing counselor. These counselors are knowledgeable about available sources of mortgage support, have experience negotiating with lenders, and have worked with homeowners in and out of foreclosure on issues such as budgeting, credit repair and meeting the responsibilities of owning a home. For those homeowners who are able to save their homes – more than 40 percent of program participants to date – they emerge from the process not only still in their homes but also more prepared to avoid future financial problems. - Community Legal Services - Although the housing counselors in the Foreclosure Prevention Program are skilled in negotiating with lenders and their attorneys, there are instances in which homeowners facing foreclosure require legal support to resolve their cases. To that end, OHCD funds Community Legal Services (CLS) to provide mortgage foreclosure legal services to homeowners facing foreclosure. CLS attorney/paralegal teams help homeowners responding to foreclosure lawsuits to negotiate with lenders to modify mortgage loan terms to preserve homeownership, or will represent the homeowner to defend foreclosure, as appropriate.
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