Foreclosure Crisis

I want to applaud Jamie Smith's Hopkins' article on the Maryland Mortgage Program ( "State mortgage program lags on modifying loans," Dec. 21). It was right on! Governor O'Malley has taken credit for Maryland being in front of the foreclosure crisis. The truth is Maryland lags behind, as the article indicated. Housing Secretary Raymond Skinner and his aide Clarence Snuggs are making Maryland the laughing stock of the affordable housing industry. Not only have the governor and his agency let its citizens down in foreclosure assistance, they lags behind many states in multi-family projects funded by federal tax credits.

WASHINGTON -- A central California agricultural town, the automobile capital of the world and a down-on-its-luck gambling hot spot had the nation's highest rates of foreclosure filings for the first half of 2007, according to real estate data released yesterday. Stockton, Calif., Detroit and Las Vegas - three areas with vastly different economies and demographic trends - have all been hit hard by the nation's growing foreclosure crisis, which is ravaging both major urban areas and middle America.

Civil Justice might be small — you can count the full-time attorneys at the nonprofit legal assistance group on one hand — but its impact is anything but. The Baltimore organization has trained more than 1,400 lawyers in foreclosure law so they can help Marylanders who are struggling to save their homes. That's a sweeping change in a state that just several years ago had few attorneys with any expertise in the subject — not counting the ones representing banks. Civil Justice also files individual and class action lawsuits in its battle against ever-mutating housing problems.

Maryland received $40 million in federal aid to help struggling homeowners make their mortgage payments after losing a job or taking an income hit, state and federal officials announced Friday. Borrowers could receive as much as $50,000 in interest-free loans to pay off past-due amounts and to make up to two years of payments. They must have sustained an income loss of at least 15 percent, be three to 12 months behind on their mortgage and have a "reasonable likelihood" of being able to get back on their feet.

I received the Sept. 25 edition of The Sun and was disgusted to see a full-length ad for Wells Fargo on the front page. While it's bad enough to turn the front page over to an advertiser, it's even worse to allow a corporation deeply implicated in our community's foreclosure crisis such a prominent forum to whitewash its image. Adding the words "advertising pullout" in small print doesn't make it OK. Rather than selling the front page to Wells Fargo, a responsible newspaper would be reporting on its activities in the home loan industry.

The executive director of Baltimore-based Civil Justice, a nonprofit legal-help group best known for its foreclosure defense work, announced Tuesday that he will be stepping down to join a private law firm. Phillip Robinson said his departure date hasn't been set — he will remain with Civil Justice as it conducts a national search for his replacement — but he hopes the handoff will happen in January. He intends to join Legg Law Firm in Frederick. In Robinson's eight years at Civil Justice, the small nonprofit has worked to improve Marylanders' access to legal expertise, especially in real estate matters.

Rep. Elijah Cummings wants folks to know that he's keeping it real. Like really, really, really real. Starting with where he lives. He told a crowd at Howard University Wednesday just how down-and-dirty real his Baltimore neighborhood is. “I live in the inner, inner, inner-city. I'm one of the few congresspeople who live in the inner, inner city," The Hill reported Cummings saying. "You know, I ain't living close to the inner city, I'm right there on the 'Do the Right Thing' block.

Home mortgage foreclosures continue unabated, feeding the economic crisis gripping America, while those charged with fighting the decline are doing perilously little to keep families in their homes. In Maryland, the number of homes in foreclosure grew by 36 percent in the third quarter of this year compared with the previous quarter, the Mortgage Bankers Association reports. In November, more than 78,000 properties were repossessed nationwide, and the Federal Reserve now predicts that new foreclosures will reach about 2.25 million before the year ends.

The number of U.S. homes lost to foreclosure in September was half the number in September 2010 - the peak month of the foreclosure crisis, according to data released Wednesday. In September, there were 57,000 completed foreclosures across the country, real estate industry analysis firm CoreLogic reported in its monthly National Foreclosure Report. A year prior, in September 2011, there were 83,000 completed foreclosures. "Increasingly improving market conditions and industry and government policy are allowing distressed homeowners to pursue refinancing, loan modifications or short sales rather than foreclosures,” said Anand Nallathambi, president and CEO of CoreLogic, in a statement.

If you're a local Bank of America borrower behind on your home mortgage, chances are you've received an invitation to come chat in Baltimore. The company is holding a foreclosure-prevention event next Thursday through Saturday -- June 28 through June 30 -- at the Baltimore Hilton for customers whose loans it services. It's one in a series of face-to-face events that Bank of America and other mortgage servicers have put on. In other cases, they've participated in events organized by groups or political leaders . The appeal of in-person?