Huffington Post Foreclosure Dispatches Focuses on QLS

Brennan Center Research Associate Neeta Pal has been contributing pieces
to an ongoing Huffington Post series titled "Foreclosure Dispatches:
Views from around the Country." The series focuses on the perspectives
of people who have seen or experienced
firsthand what happens when homeowners go up against banks and mortgage
servicers without an advocate at their side. This week, Pal spoke to
Queens Legal Services' Jessica Yager and Franklin Romeo about their
efforts to assist more than 800 homeowners in the hardest hit borough in
New
York City, and to reach another 1,300 homeowners through extensive
education and outreach efforts.

From the piece:

What, in your view, is the main challenge facing homeowners in foreclosure?

A simple truth has emerged from the mortgage mess: having help makes a
difference. The foreclosing bank always has a team of lawyers, loan
servicers, and underwriters for every single foreclosure. It's David v.
Goliath, every day, in courtrooms across the country. We support efforts
to reform the foreclosure process and to protect homeowner rights, but
these rights are meaningless if homeowners don't have access to
high-quality legal and counseling services.

In New York, one of the most immediate challenges facing homeowners
is the imminent defunding of one of the nation's most successful
statewide networks of independent non-profit advocates (including QLS)
who have been helping homeowners avoid foreclosure since this crisis
began. The New York State Foreclosure Prevention Services Program has
funded 120 organizations, both housing counselors and legal services
offices, in every county in the state. The Program's advocates have
assisted tens of thousands of families and have helped avert thousands
of foreclosures.

As we look ahead to a new wave of foreclosures on the horizon, the
imminent closure of this program is devastating. Not only will
homeowners be left with drastically fewer places to turn for quality,
free assistance, but a perfect opening will be left for mortgage fraud
scammers to prey on homeowners who have nowhere else to turn. We hope
New York's politicians will hear the call from homeowners and
organizations like QLS and renew this program immediately!

What is one aspect of the foreclosure crisis that has been overlooked by the media?

Too many news stories still invoke the notion that irresponsible
homeowners are to blame for the housing crisis, either by purchasing a
home beyond their means or borrowing recklessly against their current
home. This storyline is unfair to homeowners and distracts from the real
cause of the crisis we now face: The mortgage system — chiefly banks,
regulators, the credit rating industry — failed them. Banks were bent
on originating (and then securitizing) as many mortgages as possible,
and this business plan required borrowers. Through both subtle and
outright predatory means, borrowers were systematically and aggressively
induced to take on increasing amounts of debt without being provided
with accurate information about affordability or risk. More coverage of
these abuses would present a more nuanced and accurate picture of the
housing crisis.

 Read the rest of the Dispatch at HuffingtonPost.com.