Steven and Lisa Maultsby lost their Mississippi home to foreclosure this year. At the time, they thought they were being reviewed for a loan modification through the U.S. government’s foreclosure-prevention program.“We did everything they told us to do.” The Maultsbys are angry not only at their mortgage company, but also at the government, and they’re two voices among a discontented chorus. The Obama administration’s initial foreclosure-prevention programs, launched in early 2009, were intended to help 7 million to 9 million people. So far, they’ve aided about 2 million, and not all of those are out of foreclosure danger. Meanwhile, 2.5 million homes have been lost to foreclosure since 2009, an additional 4 million are in the foreclosure process or seriously delinquent “Every program has fallen far short of goals. I can’t think of one that’s been largely successful,” says John Dodds, director of the Philadelphia Unemployment Project, a non-profit that’s been involved in foreclosure prevention for decades. But HAMP was targeted to help 3 million to 4 million homeowners, President Obama said when he announced it in 2009. When it expires next December, it will have prevented fewer than 800,000 foreclosures, Kaufman’s congressional oversight panel estimated in December 2010. HAMP “has been a failure,” Neil Barofsky, the former special inspector general for TARP, told a congressional committee in October. Home Affordable Refinance Program (HARP). Through September, it’s helped 928,570 homeowners get lower-interest loans even though they lacked the amount of equity usually needed for a new loan. HARP was intended to help 4 million to 5 million homeowners. Federal Housing Administration Short Refinance program. Intended to help 500,000 to 1.5 million homeowners refinance into loans with a lower interest rate, the FHA program did fewer than 400 deals through September, a year after the effort’s launch, government data show.
