A total of 23,324 homeowners in Massachusetts have participated in the federal government’s home loan modification program.

Less than a quarter of those homeowners – 5,635 – have been able to secure permanent mortgage loan modifications. Those statistics were provided this week by the U.S. Housing and Urban Development Program.

HUD has been releasing monthly updates on activity under the Home Affordable Modification Program, better known as HAMP.

The program, launched more than a year ago, has been criticized for not doing enough fast enough. But for the more than 5,000 homeowners who’ve had their mortgage terms permanently adjusted, I’m sure it’s provided some relief.

In Massachusetts, more than 9,000 homeowners lost their homes to foreclosure last year. In the first two months of this year there have been 2,058 foreclosures, and another 3,996 have received foreclosure notices in the mail, according to The Warren Group.

I was  bit surprised to find that the Boston metro area, a large area that includes parts of New Hampshire, is among the metro areas with the most home loan modifications. As of the end of March, there were 12,490 active trials in the Boston metro area and more than 4,000 permanent modifications, which makes up 1.6 percent of all HAMP activity nationwide.