RISMEDIA, March 19, 2009-(MCT)-Homeowners across the country are losing out on the American Dream as they find themselves faced with out-of-control mortgage rates they can’t afford to pay. The third installment of The Neighborhood Assistance Corporation of America’s Save the Dream tour that made a stop in Columbia, South Carolina may be the lifeline that these homeowners need.
Claudette Hinds was one of an estimated 12,000 who took advantage of the tour. A mother of four from Atlanta, Georgia, Hinds and her family have spent long stretches of time without electricity and water. Hoping to find the help she needed, Hinds spent the weekend traveling from her home to Columbia in hopes of being able to work through her mortgage trouble and find relief.
The Save the Dream Tour provided homeowners who are in trouble with their mortgages access to hundreds of counselors and dozens of lender representatives to help them reduce the out-of-control mortgage rates they are faced with on a monthly basis.
People came from as far away as California and Massachusetts to get help, but not everyone left with a solution. For some, the process will take weeks as lenders sort through paperwork. And some might not get help at all.
But many, like Hinds, spent nearly an entire weekend working with the nonprofit, HUD-certified counseling agency to hang onto homes they were close to losing in the worst recession in 80 years.
© 2009, The State (Columbia, S.C.).
Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.
