There are alot of people who need help with making the payment on their home during the current economic difficulties. Unfortunately, people trying to get help last Friday by calling the Statewide foreclosure hotline encountered some difficulties:
A statewide foreclosure prevention hotline that began Friday has been unable to handle the overload of calls, said David Wald, a spokesman for the Attorney General's Office.
The response has been pretty phenomenal," he said.
Melville D. Miller Jr., president and general counsel of Legal Services of New Jersey, which runs the hotline, said a gas main break near his Edison-based office Friday required a powering down of the building, resulting in a scrambling of computer servers handling the calls.
Even with no gas main break, however, the system still would not have been able to handle the volume, he said. He noted that by 2 p.m. yesterday, the hotline's three dozen staffers had received 6,000 calls.
The State has also been trying to take action to help stabilize the NJ housing market. The Governor recently signed legislation aimed at providing some assistance:
The Mortgage Stabilization Program will allow homeowners to apply for loans of up to $25,000 to reduce mortgage payments to affordable levels. The program is limited to homeowners below income limits that vary according to county.
The Housing Assistance and Recovery Program will help homeowners facing imminent foreclosure to stay in their homes while paying rent until they are able to buy back their homes.
The state has allocated $25 million for the mortgage program and $15 million for the recovery program, drawing the money from a fund intended to reduce long-term debt.
Overall, the state hopes to stave off at least half of the 60,000 foreclosures anticipated for 2009; there were an estimated 48,000 in 2008.
Here's a video summary from the bill signing:With all the action taken, it still looks like things may get worse before they get better. We are still waiting for the adjustable mortgages to reset early this summer. That says nothing about the families who were hanging onto their homes through the holidays barely making payments. We still have a great deal of work ahead.
