The Massachusetts Office of Consumer Affairs and Business Regulation sponsored foreclosure prevention workshops for troubled homeowners in Fitchburg and Lawrence this week – and in what some may be a somewhat hopeful sign, turnout was down compared to previous events.
"They’ve done other ones across the state, and they’ve said you generally get between 200 and 300 people," said Laurel Miller, director of home ownership for Fitchburg-based Twin Cities Community Development Corp. Miller estimated 120 people came out to seek help in Fitchburg on Wednesday evening.
Tuesday’s workshop in Lawrence had about 130 attendees, said Jason Lefferts, a spokesperson for the Office of Consumer Affairs.
The goal of the workshops is to approve people for loan modifications or workouts – on the spot, if possible. Lefferts said that about a third of participants can usually be approved for a workout at the event, though he didn’t yet have numbers for the Lawrence and Fitchburg workshops.
"The one thing that we hear all the time from consumers is that they’ll call the national number and talk to one person, call again and talk to somebody else, sometimes paperwork gets lost or is incomplete," he said. "This way they’re in front of one person, and it gets done."
In addition to housing counselors from Twin Cities and Worcester-based Oak Hill CDC, the event included representatives from 10 lenders: American Home Mortgage Servicing, Bank of America, Chase, Citi, GMAC, HSBC, IndyMac, Litton Loan Servicing, Ocwen Financial and Wells Fargo.
The participating lenders notified delinquent homeowners of the event, which was also advertised in local media, said Lefferts. Participants are "from the whole spectrum – people who just got a notice, people who are a week away [from foreclosure] to people who’ve just gone delinquent and are trying to get ahead of it."
Many participants also applied for a new federal program which can offer help to unemployed homeowners.
"It almost seems like half of the people that showed up filled out those applications, showing me that a lot of the people that are falling behind are doing it because they’re unemployed or underemployed," said Miller.
