Florida Foreclosure Homes – Help Comes From Home

With the state of vacant foreclosure homes in Florida deteriorating and resulting in neighborhoods being affected, local communities wait anxiously for federal funds to arrive. Home owners part of the foreclosure homes in Florida are hopeful that this federal funding will help them get through the foreclosure crisis. For South Florida which is one of the most badly affected areas, the waiting is filled with anxiety.

One local government though, has already started dealing with a wide range of foreclosure issues that are part of the crisis.

A foreclosure assistance center was set up by the City of West Palm Beach four months back. Staff at this center helps home owners by speaking to lenders, arranging short sales or renegotiating loans. In cases where home owners are behind on their mortgage payments, the center would help cover those by providing up to $10,000.

The center met or spoke to over 5,000 people since April. Since then, 171 home owners have managed to avoid foreclosure, and others have been helped in other ways.

The numbers for the County show desperate times. By July 15,803 proceedings for foreclosure were recorded for 2008, 13,695 were recorded for all the 12 months of 2007.

Emelda Johnson, who heads the assistance center, was hired by the City in September, 2007. Earlier, she spent four years with the department of Housing and Urban Development in Washington D.C. as their deputy assistant secretary. Within months of the City hiring her, she was working on the plan to get the foreclosure assistance center started. During the initial phase she got in touch with mortgage entities, non profit organizations and lenders, but then during the formulation process of the program, many backed out, she said.

She did manage to form partnerships though. Around $1 million were put together through a ‘developer contribution’ trust fund and some was made available in the form of grant money. HUD provided an additional $430,000.

Meanwhile, the number of Florida foreclosure homes continues to rise. With local bodies across the nation pitching in, the rest of Florida could see some help too.

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