Services : Resources for Struggling Homeowners
California has been among the states hardest hit by the housing crisis. Senator Boxer has fought for policies to keep families in their homes, to promote access to affordable housing and to ensure responsible lending practices and greater transparency. To help homeowners facing foreclosure, Senator Boxer has worked on measures to allow homeowners to refinance or modify their mortgages so they can stay in their homes. She has also played a lead role in helping to stabilize neighborhoods by securing funding to allow local communities to buy vacant foreclosed properties that can become a magnet for crime and vandalism. Senator Boxer has worked to enact legislation to crack down on risky and abusive lending by lenders and banks, and to increase counseling for homeowners.
Resources to Help You Keep Your Home
Making Home Affordable: MakingHomeAffordable.Gov includes opportunities to modify or refinance your mortgage to make your monthly payments more affordable. It includes the Home Affordable Foreclosure Alternatives Program for those interested in a short sale or deed-in-lieu of foreclosure.(en espanol)
Hope Now: Hope Now is an alliance between counselors, mortgage companies, investors, and other mortgage market participants to maximize outreach efforts to homeowners in distress to help them stay in their homes.
Keep your Home California: Administered by the CalFHA Mortgage Assistance Corporation. The U.S. Treasury Department has approved nearly $2 billion in federal funding to help California families struggling to pay their mortgages. Four key programs: unemployment mortgage assistance, mortgage reinstatement assistance, principal reduction, and transition assistance.
Department of Housing and Urban Development's Avoiding Foreclosure Website.
Fannie and Freddie: FannieMae and Freddie Mac are government sponsored enterprises whose role is to stabalize the residential mortgage markets and expand access to and afforability. Both agencies offer resources to homeowners who have mortgages where Fannie or Freddie is the investor (owner) of the mortgage.
- To determine if Fannie Mae owns your mortgage, visit: www.fanniemae.com/loanlookup and www.knowyouroptions.com
- To determine if Freddie Mac owns your mortgage, visit: www.freddiemac.com/mymortgage
Special resources for veterans who have a VA Home Loan, and Active Duty Servicemembers
Ensuring That Your Bank is Working with You
If you believe that your bank has not appropriately responded to your requests for assistance, you may request that the regulator with appropriate jurisdiction review the bank’s actions to ensure that the financial institution has followed regulations designed to protect consumers.
Most large national banks are regulated by the federal government, to determine which federal agency has authority over your lender or loan servicer, visit: HelpWithMyBank.gov
Smaller lenders may be regulated by the State of California. To determine which state agency has authority over your lender or loan servicer visit: Home Loan Regulator Search
Reporting Mortgage Fraud or Abuse
There is never a fee to get assistance or information about Making Home Affordable from your lender or a Dept. of Housing and Urban Development approved housing counselor. Beware of any person or organization that asks you to pay a fee in exchange for housing counseling services or modification of a delinquent loan. Never submit your mortgage payments to anyone other than your mortgage company without their approval.
To learn more about loan fraud and how to report suspicious activity visit: StopFraud.gov
Additional information is located at LoanScamAlert.org
You may also report suspicious activity to the California Department of Justice. Information about the DOJ’s response to housing fraud is located at their website.