July 14th, 2009 by Reed Allmand 
The foreclosure crisis has reached a feverish pitch. With nearly 10,000 foreclosures per day, more and more Americans are losing their homes to foreclosure despite billions of dollars invested in foreclosure prevention schemes. Job losses, restricted credit, exploding APRs and a mortgage industry that has adopted a “delay the inevitable” attitude towards loan modifications and pending foreclosures are all conspiring to make this foreclosure crisis worse. As many Americans face foreclosures, some mortgage lenders have offered assistance that only delays their foreclosure for a few months. Many loan modifications fail because they are not affordable and foreclosure “moratoriums” are simply no good for homeowners who have suffered job losses in an economy that is leaving many workers unemployed for up to a year. Unfortunately our government has handled the mortgage industry with “kid gloves” pleading with lenders to volunteer to help abate a crisis they created. The result has been an increase (not decrease) in foreclosures. What does Uncle Sam really need to do?
Go nuclear. Our government must take decisive and forceful action to stop foreclosures even if it means mandating that mortgage lenders to (involuntarily) modify toxic mortgages. And we’re not talking about useless loan modifications; we’re talking about loan modifications that write-down the balance of some of these loans making foreclosure prevention a long-term reality for homeowners. Right now many homeowners are facing mortgages that are upside-down and unless their loans are written-down, they have little hope of staying out of foreclosure over the long-term.
About Reed Allmand
Allmand's vision is rooted in his own financially precarious childhood in Abilene "My father always had difficulty holding a job and supporting our family, so after my parents divorced when I was 12, my sister and I got jobs to help make ends meet," he recalls. "I remember what it felt like as a child to worry that our car would be repossessed or home foreclosed on."
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