Schneiderman touts progress in avoiding home foreclosures By: A.J. Rao

From the Dunkirk Observer

On Wednesday, Eric T. Schneiderman, New York state attorney general, spoke at the Robert H. Jackson Center, where he released a three-year progress report on his efforts to prevent foreclosures, keep families in their homes and rebuild communities hit hardest by the housing crash.

Buoyed by three programs - the Homeowner Protection Program, the New York State Mortgage Assistance Program and a Web-based app called AGScamHelp.com - Schneiderman said 50,000 New York families have been able to keep their homes since 2012, and nearly 7,000 families in Western New York and the Southern Tier have received mortgage assistance or housing counseling.

The programs are funded by $100 million from the National Mortgage Settlement that Schneiderman negotiated with the nation's largest banks following the housing crash.

"When I was first elected attorney general (in 2011), we were in the midst of the worst housing crisis in the history of the United States," Schneiderman said. "American families lost $7.4 trillion of home equity in the crash of 2008 ... and in 2010, 12,000 homes in Chautauqua County were vacant, almost a fifth of the county's total housing stock. So, I made it a priority to try to address this issue."

The Homeowner Protection Program, launched in June 2012, is a network of nearly 90 housing counseling and legal services that provide free assistance to families at risk of foreclosure. Local HOPP partners in Western New York and the Southern Tier have helped 6,855 families negotiate 2,988 pending or approved loan modifications.

The New York State Mortgage Assistance Program, which began processing applications statewide in October 2014, provides families facing foreclosure with small loans to pay off debts that are a barrier to mortgage modification. In Western New York and the Southern Tier, NYS-MAP has approved 77 loans totaling $2,053,446.

AGScamHelp.com, launched in December 2014, helps homeowners determine whether a mortgage assistance company has been vetted by a government agency.

Schneiderman, in addition to these programs, acknowledged his directing of $33 million from the National Mortgage Settlement to community land banks through the Community Revitalization Initiative.

"Chautauqua County has been more active than any other small county in both the HOPP program and the Land Bank effort," Schneiderman said. "We've gotten the banks to agree to provide funds for these programs ... and agree to write down mortgages, but it doesn't help New Yorkers unless people take action at the local level. The local officials working with the non-profit housing counselors and lawyers here have done a remarkable job. This is an example for other counties in the state and I wanted to highlight it here."

The Chautauqua County Land Bank has received a total of $2,806,000 in funding. With the assistance of Schneiderman's office, the land bank will be able to demolish 40-50 highly distressed properties and preserve and resell 40-50 vacant "side lots."

"The New York State Office of Attorney General has made it possible for the Chautauqua County Land Bank Corporation and the other state land banks to get up and running and to undertake programs that are having a real impact on our local neighborhoods," said Vince Horrigan, county executive, who was at the press conference. "Through innovative programming involving partnerships and collaboration, the Chautauqua County Land Bank is dealing directly with the problem of delinquent, abandoned, dilapidated and tax-foreclosed properties, and the results are becoming evident in neighborhood after neighborhood."

Sam Teresi, Jamestown mayor, echoed Horrigan's observations.

"The housing crisis impacted our nation and neighborhoods, but these initiatives are now renovating properties that were once abandoned and keeping families in their homes," he said.