Time to save the average homeowner
OK, just when I am throwing my hands up in the air over hapless mortgage rescue programs, Congressman Barney Frank comes along with a pretty good idea.
It’s pretty clear the battle to save struggling homeowners stuck with crazy subprime mortgages is over.
Maybe not an abysmal failure, but given they skyrocketing foreclosure rates, it’s hard to see how these rescue efforts have made much of a difference.
But a second wave of foreclosures is building, this time among homeowners with traditional mortgages who are in danger of being chewed up by this meat grinder of a recession.
Frank’s proposal calls for spending $2 billion on homeowners who don’t qualify for various mortgage rescue programs but are in danger of getting booted from their homes after losing their jobs. (The money, appropriately, would come from the payments financial companies who received bailout money are making to the federal government.)
The money would directly to homeowners as loans – obstructionist bankers need not apply.
There are models for it as well – a federal initative launched during one of the 1970s slumps and a 26-year-old program in Pennsylvania that has helped tens of thousands of homeowners over the years.
Probably sounds like liberal hogwash to some of you out there, but it works for me.
