NeighborWorks® America, one of the nation’s largest housing and community development organizations, has announced a new public awareness campaign with the Ad Council aimed at preventing home foreclosure that urges homeowners in financial trouble to call 888-995-HOPE.

The Homeowner’s HOPE hotline, provided by the Homeownership Preservation Foundation, is the cornerstone of a foreclosure prevention effort involving many of the country’s largest mortgage market companies. The public awareness campaign strives to reduce the number of homes entering the foreclosure process, which is expected to exceed one million households in 2007.

Given that each foreclosure costs $30,000 or more, the total cost to the housing finance system of one million foreclosures could approach thirty billion dollars.

The Neighborhood Impact from Foreclosure

Research shows that homes that are not directly foreclosed upon can also be affected by foreclosure. Research showed that homes that are close to those that were foreclosed upon lose nearly one percent of their value for each foreclosed property within an eighth of a mile. For hard-hit neighborhoods around the country where dozens of homes within blocks of each other have been foreclosed upon, neighboring homeowners can expect their home values to drop by 10 percent or more.

The public awareness campaign by NeighborWorks America and the Ad Council is aimed at preventing this devastating outcome.

Earlier in the year, the Mortgage Bankers Association released residential mortgage foreclosure statistics that show the problem of foreclosure is increasing. Families are under stress from a variety of complicated sources — high mortgage costs from adjustable rate and subprime mortgages, weak local economies, personal factors such as illness, or divorce and more. NeighborWorks America and the Ad Council are hoping that homeowners that call the hotline can begin the conversation to work out the problem and avoid foreclosure.

"We're currently hearing from more than 500 callers each day," said the Homeownership Preservation Foundation President and Executive Director Colleen Hernandez.  "Homeowners are facing foreclosure at record rates. This issue reaches into every social and economic demographic out there and homeowners facing delinquency need to remember that they're not alone. Even if you're currently not having problems paying your mortgage, chances are you know a friend, family member, co-worker or acquaintance that may be.  We want to get the message out there — call 888-995-HOPE for help."

Research conducted by Freddie Mac shows that half of families who enter into foreclosure never call their lender for help. “That’s the wrong thing to do," Wade said. "When a home is foreclosed, everyone loses — the family, the community, and the lender.”

The television and radio public service announcements began airing in early July. Print and Internet-targeted spots are scheduled to folllow. The public service announcements, and more information about the campaign, are available on the campaign’s web site, www.foreclosurehelpandhope.org.

NeighborWorks Foreclosure Prevention Efforts to Date

A key element of the NeighborWorks America fight against foreclosure is its signature program, the NeighborWorks Center for Foreclosure Solutions (CFS), created to preserve homeownership in the face of rising foreclosure rates. In conjunction with national nonprofit, mortgage and insurance partners, the CFS builds capacity among foreclosure counselors around the nation, conducts public outreach campaigns to reach financially distressed homeowners, and researches local and national trends to develop strategic solutions. In cities and states with high rates of foreclosure, the CFS works with local leaders to create sustainable foreclosure intervention programs.

CFS already has launched statewide foreclosure prevention initiatives in Ohio, Georgia and Delaware and local initiatives in Baltimore and St. Louis. The CFS plans to start dozens more local and state initiatives and to leverage the influence of the Ad Council campaign to encourage more families to call their lender or local NeighborWorks organization for help avoiding foreclosure. The current campaigns have helped increase the number of callers to the 888-995-HOPE hotline from approximately 700 per month in July 2006 to nearly 15,000 per month in June 2007.

More than 190 local nonprofits and municipalities have joined the national ad campaign to promote foreclosure counseling in their communities.

For more information mortgages and foreclosures, contact your lender, mortgage banker or home builders association.

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