National NeighborWorks Week is Your Chance to Get Involved in Your Community

By Omar Velarde-Wong
Project Manager, Communications and Marketing
NeighborWorks America

National NeighborWorks Week has been a core part of NeighborWorks America’s fabric for the past 27 years. But this year it has taken on special meaning for me. This is my first time managing it and it has been an absolute pleasure to witness first-hand the dedication of our member organizations to their communities. There are more than 230 organizations across the country but this particular program is the one that connects us on a single week and embodies the mission of the organization.

We have more than 300 volunteer events planned so far during NeighborWorks Week, June 5-12. About half of them will involve local NeighborWorks organizations spreading the word in their communities about loan modification scams. The proliferation of these scams is a huge problem in our neighborhoods, and we’re doing all we can to inform homeowners facing foreclosure how to avoid loan modification scams and report them to trusted authorities.

This year’s National NeighborWorks Week will be no different. We will be holding our traditional community building activities, including home repair and painting events, landscaping projects, and mural painting.

I’m looking forward to getting involved myself. I’ll be one of dozens of volunteers on Saturday, June 5, who will be landscaping the Willowbrook Condominium, a tenant purchase project developed by our local D.C. member organization, Manna, Inc. I also will be canvassing the Brookland neighborhood and inviting residents to a Loan Modification Scam Alert seminar later in the day.

I encourage you all to get involved in your community during this volunteer week and beyond. Find an event near you here. If you’ve already selected an event, please share your comments, pictures and videos with us! Contact me to find out where to send them in.

NeighborWorks America Salutes 2010 National Homeownership Month

NeighborWorks America announces a series of consumer outreach efforts to support affordable, sustainable and healthy homes and communities during the 2010 National Homeownership Month.

“For more than 30 years, NeighborWorks America and its network of affiliates around the country have supported and encouraged affordable and long-term homeownership,” said Ken Wade, CEO of NeighborWorks America. “From providing daily homeownership tips to urging homeowners facing foreclosure to talk to the right people, throughout National Homeownership Month we are working to get good information in the hands of potential homebuyers and current homeowners so they can achieve and sustain the American Dream of homeownership.”

NeighborWorks America and its network have planned a series of activities in June, including:

• Featuring a “homeownership tip of the day” on NeighborWorks America’s National Homeownership Month Web page, NeighborWorks America’s Facebook page, and via Twitter.


• Broadcasting videos that feature homeowners and nonprofits who discuss what homeownership means to them. To see current examples, visit the NeighborWorks America YouTube channel.


• Urging homeowners who face foreclosure to contact the right people through a new public service announcement campaign designed to educate homeowners about where they can turn for help if they are at risk of foreclosure. The campaign urges homeowners to call the Hope Hotline – 888-995-HOPE (4673) – where they can speak to nonprofit HUD-approved housing counselors in English, Spanish, or more than 20 additional languages. To view the ads, or for more information about the campaign, visit http://www.foreclosurehelpandhope.org/. Homeowners at risk of foreclosure can also find nonprofit, HUD-approved housing counselors in their community by visiting http://www.findaforeclosurecounselor.org/.


• Encouraging homeowners who face foreclosure to avoid loan modification scams by linking homeowners to the Loan Scam Alert campaign web site, which contains tips on how to avoid loan modification scam artists and where to report loan modification scams. The campaign web site is available in English and Spanish, and also has materials available in Chinese, Korean and Vietnamese.


• Holding a series of homeownership education classes, fairs, and loan modification awareness events during National NeighborWorks Week, June 5-12, 2010.


• Participating in industry training and education events that strengthen the nonprofit housing counseling community to meet the needs of homebuyers and existing homeowners.

For more information about NeighborWorks activities during National Homeownership Month, please contact Erin Angell Collins, ecollins@nw.org or 202-220-6317.

NFMC Report: More than Half of Families Facing Foreclosure Affected by Job Loss

Today NeighborWorks America, the administrator of the National Foreclosure Mitigation Counseling (NFMC) Program, announced that 58 percent of homeowners who received foreclosure counseling through the NFMC Program reported the primary reason they were facing foreclosure was reduced or lost income. The news is found in NeighborWorks’ fifth Congressional report, which outlines NFMC Program activity through January 31, 2010.

"With unemployment numbers not likely to dip below 9 percent in 2010, our report proves what many already believed to be true. Unemployment and reduced income are having a devastating effect on our nation’s homeowners,” said Ken Wade, CEO of NeighborWorks America. “While Congress and state governments have stepped up and extended unemployment benefits to help families survive this tough economic climate, it’s time for mortgage servicers and investors to make meaningful accommodations for homeowners facing foreclosure. If they don’t, we’ll see even more empty houses and devastated neighborhoods in our communities.”

Greater detail on the findings of this report can be found in the NeighborWorks newsroom.

NeighborWorks Fights Mortgage Modification Scams with National Effort

NeighborWorks organizations around the U.S. are holding more than 150 events during national NeighborWorks Week (June 5-12, 2010) to inform tens of thousands of homeowners on how to avoid and report mortgage modification scams.

The events include hundreds of volunteers canvassing neighborhoods with tip-sheets and flyers, dozens of one-on-one and group workshops about reputable mortgage modification programs, and more.

“Many mortgage modification scams are sophisticated, slick and so well crafted that homeowners find it difficult to recognize them for the danger that they are,” said NeighborWorks America CEO Ken Wade. “More than 7,700 mortgage modification scams have been reported to the authorities since our campaign started in October, and we believe that the number of homeowners who have been victimized is significantly greater.”

In addition to mortgage modification scam prevention events nationwide, NeighborWorks organizations also are holding traditional community celebrations and hands-on community building activities, including home repair and painting events, landscaping projects, and mural painting. These efforts, and those of NeighborWorks Week events over the past 26 years, leave positive lasting legacies in participating communities all year round.

Find events on the National NeighborWorks Week website. More information is also in the NeighborWorks newsroom.

NeighborWorks America Receives $1 Million Grant from the Rockefeller Foundation for Nonprofit Housing Counseling and Foreclosure Prevention

NeighborWorks America today announced that it received $1 million from The Rockefeller Foundation in support of infrastructure development and upgraded technical support for nonprofit housing counseling organizations. The grant will help to strengthen and supplement nonprofit housing counseling capacity and increase their efficiency and ability to help homeowners avoid foreclosure.

Specifically, the grant will help NeighborWorks America provide data management and technical support to nonprofit organizations using CounselorMax™ to manage homeowner client data and to deliver and track that information to the servicers through the HOPE LoanPort, a web-based tool developed by the HOPE NOW Alliance that streamlines loan modification applications on behalf of borrowers at-risk of foreclosure, allowing housing counselors to efficiently transmit completed applications to mortgage servicers. In addition, the grant will also support community-based outreach events for homeowners at risk of foreclosure.

“Homeowners and housing counselors need better technology to work through the complicated details and document requirements for a long-term, successful mortgage modification,” said Ken Wade, CEO of NeighborWorks America. “The support from The Rockefeller Foundation will improve the work of nonprofit organizations that have been slowed by a paper-based system and inefficient mortgage modification delivery process. As a result of these investments, counselors will be able to serve homeowners at risk of foreclosure more efficiently and effectively.”