Center for New York City Neighborhoods Newsletter
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Date: AUGUST 17, 2010 |
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In This Issue:
CNYCN and Partners Host Rise Up & Stay Put! Home Rescue Fairs in Queens and Brooklyn
 
The Center for NYC Neighborhoods (CNYCN) alongside national and local partners hosted two Rise Up & Stay Put! Home Rescue Fairs in Queens and Brooklyn this summer. More than 1,640 community members attended, with some 1,150 homeowners receiving in-person assistance from banks and housing experts.
Attendance for the August 7th event at York College in Jamaica, Queens was over 1,100, while the event held at Long Island University in Brooklyn had some 530 attendees.
"We are pleased with the total turnout for both of these home rescue fairs. It shows us that there continue to be thousands of New Yorkers in need of assistance. The face-to-face contact with lenders and the free services that our expert counselors and attorneys can offer help homeowners arrive at real solutions. We are seeing tangible results such as new case files opened, existing files updated, clients receiving loan modifications and more,” said Michael Hickey, Executive Director of CNYCN. “We are also working with the servicers to understand and maximize the outcomes from these events, particularly how many modifications are achieved as a direct result of them."
The following are some highlights based on homeowner feedback from both events.
• 86% of attendees reported being “satisfied” or “very satisfied” with the event in Queens and 84% reported the same in Brooklyn;
• 90% found the information available at both events useful;
• 70% of Queens attendees had already filed for a modification vs. 60% in Brooklyn;
• 66% of attendees in Queens and 76% in Brooklyn felt the actions they took at the fair would help them avoid foreclosure ;
• The ethnic breakdown of both events was similar: 68% Black, 13% Hispanic, 9% Asian, 5% White and 5% Other;
• 55% of homeowners saw a housing counselor at the Queens event;
• At both fairs, most of the major servicers were present, including Bank of America, Chase, Wells Fargo, Citi, Freddie Mac, Fannie Mae, HSBC, Ocwen, Saxon, Litton, GMAC, One West/Indy Mac, LBPS and PNC.
CNYCN was supported by our lead organizing partners Chhaya CDC in Queens and Pratt Area Community Council in Brooklyn, as well as members of the Alliance for Stabilizing our Communities (National Urban League, National CAPACD, La Raza and Bank of America), in addition to AARP, NeighborWorks, HUD and the New York City Department of Housing Preservation and Development. CNYCN’s media partners included KISS FM, Hot 97 and WPIX.
 
The special guests included Queens Council Member Leroy Comrie and Radio Host Bob Slade from KISS FM. At the Brooklyn event, Senator Velmanette Montgomery stopped by to meet with homeowners. Council Members Comrie and Letitia James joined Michael Hickey in live radio forums prior the events on popular talk shows on KISS FM and Hot 97, reaching out to those in their communities highly affected by the foreclosure crisis.
CNYCN is looking forward to continuing the Rise Up & Stay Put! series with its partners and hopes to organize the next event in the Bronx.
CNYCN Joins HOPE LoanPort by Hope Now Alliance
CNYCN has joined the HOPE LoanPort developed by the Hope Now Alliance. The LoanPort facilitates easier submission of complete loan modification packages by housing counselors through online document submission – avoiding the highly problematic process of faxing or mailing modification request documents.
To date, this innovative web-based housing counselor tool has already assisted over 200 organizations nationwide offering loan modification solutions. So far, CNYCN is the first housing counseling and legal services network to join the HOPE LoanPort as such. In this capacity, CNYCN will be better able to track applications for quality review and escalation of troubled cases.
"This should help our counselors have faster processing of loan modification packages with the participating lenders,” said Jennifer Murphy, Director of Lender/Servicer Relations at CNYCN. “It should also avoid problems with lost paperwork and long wait times that have been an on-going issue with lenders due to the large volume of applications submitted manually.”
Eleven mortgage servicers, including Bank of America, JP Morgan Chase, Citibank, GMAC, Ocwen, OneWest, PNC Mortgage, American Home Mortgage Servicing, Inc., Bayview Loan Servicing, Saxon Mortgage Services and Sun Trust Mortgage, Inc., have signed on to HOPE LoanPort.
Hope LoanPort is predicting that an additional 100-150 counseling agencies will join the portal this summer, making the total number of participants more than 300.
For more information about the HOPE LoanPort, please contact Jennifer Murphy at
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Network Member Highlight: Pratt Area Community Council – Lead Agency for the Brooklyn Rise Up & Stay Put! Home Rescue Fair
We want to offer special appreciation to the staff and counselors of Pratt Area Community Council (PACC) for their leadership in helping the first Rise Up & Stay Put! Home Rescue Fair take shape!
Thanks go to PACC’s Executive Director, Deb Howard and Director of Home Services, Pat Julien for their leadership. We also want to acknowledge PACC’s energetic, expert staff members: Charrisse Smith, Michelle Etwaroo and Divinity Pittman for PR, marketing, community/volunteer outreach, and |
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logistical support; Sujatha Raman-Snyder for her work with the elected officials and her outreach efforts with banking partners; Bonita Dowling for her help in training the counselors; Bonita and Stephan Dookeram for counseling at the event; Flora Smith for customer registration, and last but not least Marion Gifford for taking care of the food area at the event. All of you did an excellent job!
PACC just celebrated its 45th Anniversary in 2009 and is one of the premier community development organizations within the CNYCN Network, serving the Fort Greene, Clinton Hill and Bedford Stuyvesant neighborhoods of Brooklyn. These communities have been hard-hit by the foreclosure crisis.
Whether you own your home or are considering buying one, PACC can help you with a variety of services, including foreclosure prevention, individual counseling for loss mitigation, and assistance negotiating with your lender if you are in default. PACC also offers workshops on the following issues: First Time Homeowner Mortgages, Predatory Mortgage Lending and Financial Credit Counseling. In addition, PACC offers services, including one-on-one credit counseling and mortgage counseling to refinance or purchase a home, to senior homeowners and tenants. For more information about PACC’s services, visit www.prattarea.org.
Our next Newsletter will feature Chhaya CDC , the lead network partner for the Rise Up & Stay Put! Home Rescue Fair held in Queens.
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CNYCN Publishes New Consumer Outreach Brochures
CNYCN now has available new consumer outreach brochures in English and Spanish. These brochures, featuring the faces and stories of Network Partners and their clients, illustrate the free foreclosure prevention services available to homeowners by calling 311.
These brochures give first-hand information to consumers on what steps to take to avoid foreclosure; how to contact our Network Partners for services; how to avoid scams; and how to proceed with the foreclosure settlement conference process.
Consumers can download PDFs of these brochures from our website at www.cnycn.org. We are now distributing hardcopies of the brochures to our Network Partners. Please let us know how many copies you would like to request by emailing Petra Tuomi at
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