City to help owners keep their homes

If you're falling behind on mortgage payments, confused about the terms of a home loan or worried you could lose your house in foreclosure, Mayor Nutter wants to help.

Nutter yesterday announced a series of initiatives to help people in danger of mortgage foreclosure, among them a city hot line for financial counseling.

Just call 215-334-HOME.

Nutter has recorded a public-service announcement for radio and television to tell people about the program.

He urged people to ask for aid if they are in danger of losing their house.

"There is help for you," he said yesterday. "Do not suffer in silence."

According to the Philadelphia Unemployment Project, there were 6,237 foreclosure filings in 2007, compared with 5,288 in 2006. The city estimates that there will be 8,500 filings this year.

Other efforts to help keep people in their homes are under way.

Sheriff John Green has delayed sheriff's sales until July.

And Common Pleas Court has started a program that requires lenders to sit down with foreclosed homeowners in front of a judge and make a good-faith effort to renegotiate mortgages reasonably to allow those homeowners to keep their houses.

"We don't want people losing their houses," Nutter said.

The city also has a series of outreach teams going door to door to give homeowners advice.

Nutter has allocated an extra $2 million in the fiscal year 2009 budget for housing aid - $700,000 for housing counseling, $300,000 for legal aid and $1 million for the Pennsylvania Housing Finance Agency's HERO program that helps people with poor credit to refinance home loans. *