Other EHLP Eligibility Requirements Include

HUD Emergency Homeowners' Loan Program (EHLP) for no interest, forgivable loans to unemployed/underemployed homeowners to prevent foreclosures

Who Does EHLP Assist?

EHLP is designed to provide mortgage payment relief to eligible experiencing a drop in income of at least 15%, and resulting from involuntary unemployment or underemployment due to adverse economic conditions and/or a medical emergency. It administered by HUD with funding appropriated by Congress.

Other EHLP eligibility requirements include:

Income Limit: Applicant has a total household income equal to, or less than, 120 percent of the Area Median Income (AMI) previous to loss of income resulting from involuntary unemployment, underemployment, and/or medical emergency/serious injury (BELOW about $93,950 for family of 4, $84,450 for 3, $75,150 for 2, $65,750 for 1, $101,500 for 5).

Delinquency: Applicant must be at least three months delinquent on mortgage payments, as signified by notification by their lender/servicer.

Likelihood of Foreclosure: Applicant must have received notification of their lender's/servicer's intention to foreclose on their mortgage as a result of the delinquency, and must also certify to the likelihood that their mortgage will be foreclosed upon.

Ability to Resume Payment: Applicant can be determined to have a reasonable likelihood of being able to resume repayment of the first mortgage obligations within 2 years, and meet other housing expenses and debt obligations when the household income rises above 85% of the previous level, as determined by the homeowner's back-end debt-to-income ratio, which must be less-than-or-equal-to 55%.

Principal Residence: Applicant must reside in the mortgaged property as their principal residence, both at time of application and for the duration of the progam loan period. The mortgaged property must also be a single family residence (1 to 4 unit structure or condominium unit).

Student Loan Delinquencies Issue: If an applicant is delinquent on a student loan, they may not qualify for this assistance. However, they may be able to get a deferment or forbearance on their loan because of unemployment and then they may qualify.

Recently re-employed homeowners with substantial arrearages on their mortgages from previous long term unemployment will be eligible to apply to.

How Does EHLP Work?

The Emergency Homeowners' Loan Program will offer a declining balance, deferred payment "bridge loan" (non-recourse, subordinate loan with zero interest) for up to $50,000 to assist eligible homeowners with: (i) payments of arrearages, including delinquent taxes and insurance, and/or (ii) up to 24 months of monthly payments on their mortgage principal, interest, mortgage insurance premiums, taxes, and hazard insurance.

Where do I apply? Applications will be available on line at the NeighborWorks web site at www.nw.org on June 20 and can be copied for outreach efforts. These pre-applications wiil be due by July 22 to local nonprofits in each state that also will be listed on the web site. Then a lottery will be held to choose 1260 or so homeowners who can get loans from the $61 million allocated for Massachusetts. Homeowners chosen will have to submit certain named documents to show that they meet program qualifications.

How did this program get set up?

Community groups starting with the Massachusetts Communities Action Network (MCAN) and the Brockton Interfaith Community worked to get this included in the Federal Financial Reform Bill that was passed in July 2010 and include $1 billion in funding for this program with $61 million slated for Massachusetts. Congressman Barney Frank responded to our requests for helping unemployed homeowners and sponsored this funding being included in the House passed version of the bill.

Is there enough money for all eligible unemployed /underemployed homeowners? NO. Massachusetts is getting $61 million. There’s enough funding for helping about 1260 unemployed/underemployed homeowners in Massachusetts.

However, we are also trying to get federal officials to support an Extended Forbearance policy that would enable most additional unemployed/underemployed homeowners, who can’t be served by this program due to lack of funds, to still be able to prevent foreclosure of their home.

For more information, contact Massachusetts Communities Action Network (617) 822-1499 [email protected] I left you a voice mail regarding this question. In essence, if an applicant's total monthly debt payments (mortgage related, credit cards, car loans, etc) exceeds 55% of their pre-event monthly income they would not be eligible for the program assistance. I'm guessing the basic reasoning would be that they would not be expected to succeed in the program. They are too far upside down or under water.

Of course there are probably plenty in this category because, if an applicant had a mortgage with a loan reset or two mortgages on the house, perhaps an outstanding balance on a home equity line, and other kinds of debt it is certainly possible for them to exceed the 55% standard pretty quickly. Furthermore, people were/are racking up huge amounts of credit card debt with huge penalties for late, slow, payments.

Scott.

508-635-7109 [email protected] In a message dated 3/9/2011 8:31:09 A.M. Eastern Standard Time, [email protected] writes:

Scott,

Can one of you please explain what it means on page 23-24 of the attached document when it says at the top of p. 24 that the standard for determining if a homeowner will be re-employed is, "the homeowner must have a back end ration of below 55% (principal, interest, taxes, insurance, revolving and fixed installment debt divided by total monthly income), or such other DTI as may be specified by HUD...... Update on State Youth Jobs Funding for 2011, the Youth Jobs Coalition (YJC) and the Organizing Challenge for 2011

Teens can get summer jobs and some year round jobs under two state funded programs called YouthWorks and School to Career Connecting Activities. Because the state budget faces big deficits this year, to prevent these programs from being seriously cut, we need to contact our state legislators and ask them to make this one of their budget priorities.

2010 We prevented a 50% cut to the State YouthWorks Youth Jobs Program saving 2700 jobs for the summer of 2010. We did this with our organizing of the 700 person February March to the State House and meetings there, several other rallies and public actions, and local meetings with legislators. There was strong youth leadership in all these events. The Patrick Administration as an emergency step during this Recession agreed to our proposal in a meeting with Joanne Goldstein, Secretary of Labor and Workforce Development, in early June, to take $4 milllon being saved for summer 2011 jobs and spend that during summer 2010 to prevent the 50% cut in jobs.

2011 We need to organize again to get these funds needed for youth jobs through a Supplemental Budget and/or the Regular Budget

a. State YouthWorks Youth Jobs Program $8.4 million This pays the salaries of youth in jobs in non profit groups and in government b. State School to Career Connecting Activities Youth Jobs Program $4 million This pays the salaries of adult staff who develop jobs for youth in companies and hospitals, recruit/train/place the youth in these jobs. The employer pays the wages of the teens (In Boston, these are the PIC jobs, elsewhere the WIB jobs).

Step One—Patrick Administration Budget Recommendations Governor Patrick DID support these funding levels in the budgets he filed.

Step Two: Legislature, House and Senate decisions in April and May They can agree with Governor Patrick’s budget proposals on youth jobs, or cut them, or increase them.

State Budget Deficit The state has a $1.5 billion deficit because of the Recession lowering how much taxes are paid. This could lead to cuts in youth jobs funding. Some groups may support a tax package so that less budget cuts are made. This will be politically hard to get through because of stated opposition to tax increase by many elected officials. However, faced with this same revenue hole in 2009, the Legislature made major cuts but also raised the sales tax so that the cuts were not even greater---$1 billion was cut and $800 million raised by the sale tax increase—otherwise $1.8 billion would have been cut. Organizing Campaign for 2011

1. Statewide Youth Jobs March, Rally, Lobby Day at the State House on Thursday February 24 2. February-March--local meetings with legislators in your community 3. April-June--House and Senate decisions on youth jobs funding and follow up work…..

Note: Chelsea gets state funding under the YouthWorks program, see above, and Revere gets funding under the School to Career Youth Jobs program, see above.