Published: April 24, 2008 11:59 am      

State Foreclosure Crisis

Panel discusses ongoing problem

CUMBERLAND - The Rev. Charles Cephas has seen the worried, troubled look of couples and the uncertain future behind the eyes of children who have walked into his office.

"I could take all day long to tell you all the horrible scenarios since this crisis began," he said.

The crisis of which he speaks is foreclosure and Cephas, a housing resource specialist for the Maryland Rural Development Corp., has seen his share. And it doesn't appear as though the situation will get better in the near future.

Cephas spoke as part of a panel, Surviving Foreclosure/Preserving Homeownership, during the Small Town Symposium and Rural Roundtable 2008 held Wednesday at Allegany College of Maryland, which attracted about three dozen people. The day-long event was sponsored by the Maryland Rural Council, Maryland Department of Housing and Community Development and the Maryland Rural Development Corp.

Gary Sawyer, community services director for the development corporation, said by the end of this year, it's projected that 7 percent of all home mortgages throughout the country will be in foreclosure or past due.

Kelly Vaughn, outreach director for the Department of Housing and Community Development, put numbers to the problem.

In the last quarter of 2007, Maryland saw 9,722 foreclosure events compared to 715 in the same quarter of 2006. Prince George's County leads the state with 2,732, or 28.1 percent of the total. Montgomery County follows at 13.5 percent, with Baltimore City at 13 percent and Baltimore County, 10.6 percent.

Vaughn reported the U.S. Joint Economic Committee estimates that in Maryland alone, between the first quarter of 2007 and the last quarter of 2009, 25,057 subprime mortgages will go into foreclosure. In the same time period, the committee estimates that $2.73 billion in property value will be lost and $19.2 million will be lost in property taxes.

Maryland is setting a precedence nationally, Vaughn said, when it comes to assistance in the crisis.

Gov. Martin O'Malley has initiated the Home Owner Preserving Equity initiative and the Governor's Homeownership Preservation Task Force. Last week, he signed three pieces of emergency legislation to address the matter.

Vaughn said one act lengthens the foreclosure process from 15 days to 150. The Mortgage Fraud Protection Act makes mortgage fraud a crime for anyone involved in the transaction. The third act bans foreclosure rescue transactions that scam homeowners out of their homes.

Lifeline Refinance, Bridge To Hope and Homesaver Refinance programs are options within the state.

O'Malley is preparing to launch a statewide campaign, "Mortgage Late? Don't Wait."

Courtney Thomas, executive director of the Allegany County Human Resources Development Commission, emphasized the need for education.

"We didn't get here just because of what's happening," she said. "We got here because people are uneducated about finances."

Don Mathis, president and chief executive officer of the Community Action Partnership, which involves 1,100 such partnerships across the country, said he sees firsthand how poverty numbers are going up across the country.

He believes that we "need to care about the needy people in Cumberland as much as we care about the needy people in Baghdad and invest in them as much."

Reggie Stanfield, director of the Office of Community Programs for the state's DHCD, had an answer.

"There is one answer, one solution," he said. "That is for us to stand together as Marylanders and to lift other Marylanders up."

Other topics of the symposium included Financial Tools for Communities, Green and Affordable Housing, and the first rural roundtable on Identifying Policy and Program Solutions for the Future.

For more information about the state's programs, log on to www.mdhope.org or call (877) 462-7555.

Contact Maria Smith at msmith@times-news.com.