R.I. to receive $26.9M to help homeowners facing foreclosure

PROVIDENCE – Rhode Island will receive another $26.9 million in federal funds to help homeowners facing foreclosure, as part of the U.S. Treasury Department’s ‘Hardest Hit’ program.
The funds, announced Wednesday by U.S. Sen. Jack F. Reed and U.S. Rep. David N. Cicilline, will add to the $9.7 million awarded to the state in February.
The federal program targets 18 states that had the most profound impact of the housing crisis, which began in 2007. Rhode Island has begun to recover, but as Reed argued in a letter to the secretary of the Treasury Department, it continues to place among the top states at risk for continued foreclosures.
Reed cited the Mortgage Bankers Association National Delinquency Survey, which found that Rhode Island’s percentage of loans in foreclosure in the last quarter of 2015 was 36 percent higher than the national average.
The Hardest Hit program funds announced on Wednesday will be administered through Rhode Island Housing. An initial round of funding for the program, received in 2013 and allocated over two years, totaled $79 million, according to a notice on its website.
According to R.I. Housing, the program can help homeowners who qualify make mortgage payments while unemployed, make immediate payments to help save their homes, including through back taxes, help them obtain a loan modification from a lender, and help homeowners in crisis relocate.
Since the program’s launch in 2010, more than 5,300 Rhode Islanders have sought Hardest Hit Fund counseling, and more than 3,300 have received direct assistance from the program, according to Reed.
According to Cicilline, the resources may be available to homeowners who live in a one- to four-family home or condominium, who have a gross annual income less than $87,800 for one to two-person households, or who earn less than $102,400 for a household of three or more.
Monthly mortgage payments, including taxes and insurance, must exceed 31 percent of the applicant’s gross monthly income, and the qualifying household may have no more than $15,000 in savings.

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