The foreclosure crisis is threatening to enter a third year as the Tarrant County foreclosure rate for September showed an increase of 36 percent from August and Dallas County foreclosure postings jumped by 19 percent from a year ago. The root of the foreclosure crisis is not just unemployment and toxic mortgages but also the ineffective foreclosure prevention programs that the government continues to implement. It is very telling that the government continues to create and implement ineffective foreclosure programs such as Making Home Affordable while simple solutions such as allowing bankruptcy judges to modify toxic mortgages in Chapter 13 bankruptcy are ignored. Why is that? The obvious answer is that the mortgage industry has a lot of influence over our legislators while homeowners have few advocates strong enough to force the type of policy changes that are really necessary to stop the foreclosure crisis. Legislators seem to have forgotten who they truly represent and insist on funneling foreclosure prevention funding to mortgage companies instead of homeowners who need it. Billions were spent on the modification program that was designed to help 4 million homeowners avoid foreclosure; but many have not benefited. Many mortgage companies have enrolled homeowners into temporary modification programs only to deny them permanent modifications they really needed to avoid foreclosure. In the meantime the mortgage companies still benefit, reaping the rewards of the foreclosure prevention programs funded by taxpayers while avoiding the responsibilities of actually preventing foreclosure on a long-term basis. Also, many homeowners are given false hope that they can save their home with the ineffective foreclosure prevention programs only to find that the only way they have a fighting chance to save their home is if they file bankruptcy.
