D.C. homeowners wait for financial aid as foreclosure notices pile up - The Washington Post

Musawwir, 52, was among the archetypal batch of D.C. homeowners to use to the Homeowner Assistance Fund (HAF), a program meant to assistance Washingtonians keep their homes pursuing pandemic-related hardships by providing wealth for mortgages, homeowner relation fees, inferior bills, net service, insurance, delinquent spot taxes and different penalties.

Musawwir sent successful her exertion successful December 2021. She owns a condo successful 1 of the Zip codes that the District designated a high-need area, wherever the bulk of homeowners are debased income, Black and Latino, and astatine a precocious hazard of falling down connected owe payments during the coronavirus pandemic.

Nearly a twelvemonth later, Musawwir said, she has not received a dime from the program. The magnitude she owes the bank, meanwhile, has astir doubled.

Musawwir is 1 of hundreds of D.C. homeowners whose cases stay caught successful a process that advocates and homeowners person described arsenic dilatory and opaque. Government officials and caseworkers blamed delays connected owe servicers with requirements that, they said, person hampered the allocation of alleviation money. Meanwhile, protections that erstwhile shielded homeowners from foreclosure portion they await HAF dollars person expired — lone those who applied for assistance earlier Sept. 30 stay covered nether the District’s now-lapsed foreclosure moratorium.

“I utilized to get anxious due to the fact that of each these threats of foreclosure, but present I conscionable consciousness mad. Because I went done this full process, I got approved and I was told months agone it would instrumentality astir 30 days for the authorities to person the outgo to them,” Musawwir said. “Well, 30 days person travel and gone and determination ain’t nothing.”

The HAF program, funded by pandemic alleviation dollars from the U.S. Treasury Department arsenic portion of the American Rescue Plan, began successful D.C. arsenic a aviator aimed astatine helping condo owners successful Wards 7 and 8. In June, conscionable 8 days earlier a moratorium connected foreclosures successful D.C. was acceptable to expire, the programme was expanded to homeowners each crossed the city.

As of Nov. 1, the District has assigned astir $1.7 cardinal of the $50 cardinal it received from the Treasury Department, according to the D.C. Department of Housing and Community Development. While much than 1,700 homeowners had applied for the program, little than 20 percent had received assistance, metropolis information shows.

D.C. officials said that $38.9 cardinal remains disposable for homeowner assistance and, dissimilar different programs that came with a hard use-it-or-lose-it deadline, the HAF volition proceed disbursing assistance until it runs out.

Of the astir 357,000 lodging units successful the District, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, astir 43 percent are owner-occupied. According to D.C. taxation records, astir 16 percent are elder citizens oregon disabled residents who are astir apt to beryllium connected fixed incomes.

D.C. Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D) won a 3rd term this period aft campaigning connected ambitious plans for expanding lodging and implementing a semipermanent plan to make 20,000 caller Black homeowners successful the District by 2030. Keeping homeowners successful the homes they already ain is important to this program and, Bowser has said, to creating generational wealthiness for Washingtonians and preventing displacement successful rapidly gentrifying areas.

For struggling homeowners, HAF dollars could marque the quality betwixt staying successful their homes oregon being forced out.

“If I don’t get the assistance that this programme is promising, I’m truly screwed,” Musawwir said. “At 1 point, the slope was calling maine astir each day, a mates times a day. They’re sending maine notices, putting small tags connected our door. I don’t cognize however galore times I tin archer them I’ve been approved for this programme erstwhile they inactive haven’t received immoderate money.

Musawwir, who lives successful the Hillcrest Heights vicinity of D.C., has ever been the breadwinner for her household — her hubby is legally unsighted and 1 of 2 of her daughters, who is disabled, inactive lives astatine home. When the pandemic outgo her the accounting occupation she had successful aboriginal 2020, she tried to find originative ways to enactment connected apical of her bills. She freelanced, drove for Lyft, did immoderate she could.

Only recently, she said, has she been capable to find part-time work.

“That’s however my owe fell into arrears,” she said. “I don’t request a handout, I conscionable request a small spot of assistance truthful I tin bash what I ever do: Pay my bills and support it moving.”

Musawwir is among a fig of homeowners who said they had been told to halt making payments connected their mortgages portion they await the result of the HAF process. In theory, they were told, the programme volition screen the grade of their debts, up to $100,000 successful overdue payments and 3 months of aboriginal payments per household.

But arsenic clip drags on, and the magnitude she owes grows, Musawwir said, she has begun to question that advice.

Several community-based organizations, including the Latino Economic Development Center (LEDC), person been tapped to assistance homeowners with HAF applications, supply fiscal counseling and enactment arsenic go-betweens for the homeowner and D.C. government, lenders and banks.

Emi Reyes, main enforcement for LEDC, said determination are a fig of factors she believes are slowing down the process.

Mortgage servicers each person antithetic systems, exertion and senses of urgency, which, she said, tin effect successful wildly adaptable timelines. Sometimes, successful trying to get cases handled, Reyes said, her unit volition larn that servicers person sold mortgages to a antithetic institution close successful the mediate of the process, forcing a restart.

“The different happening is each authorities is trying to bash this astatine the aforesaid time,” Reyes said. “Some places similar the District whitethorn not beryllium arsenic large a precedence for these large lenders arsenic clients successful states with a overmuch larger percent of their mortgages, similar California oregon New York.”

As portion of the American Rescue Plan, the Treasury Department doled retired astir $10 cardinal successful homeowner assistance funds, giving each authorities and territory astatine slightest $50 cardinal to assistance homeowners and stave disconnected foreclosures.

And yet, advocates and attorneys said, it seems precise fewer homeowners are alert of the program.

During the aviator signifier of the program, which lone encompassed Wards 7 and 8, D.C. received less than 200 applications for assistance, city officials said. Since the programme has been unfastened to all, little than 1,800 radical person applied.

“If adjacent 1 homeowner who could person received assistance is foreclosed connected during this process, that is 1 homeowner excessively many,” said Shirley Horng, a elder unit lawyer with D.C. Legal Aid.

In caller years, a beardown lodging marketplace has helped support the foreclosure complaint successful the District low.

By the extremity of 2019, conscionable earlier the pandemic was declared, foreclosures were astatine their lowest levels since 2005, before the Great Recession lodging crash. According to ATTOM Data Solutions, D.C. was averaging astir 10 foreclosures for each 100,000 homes.

Emergency pandemic measures that prevented banks from initiating them person kept foreclosures astatine bay passim the nationalist wellness situation and its ongoing economical fallout.

But contempt calls from advocates to widen protections against foreclosure for immoderate homeowners who use for the HAF, the D.C. Council passed legislation that shields only those who applied by Sept. 30 and requires banks to notify homeowners successful default of the HAF program.

“The clip constricted quality of the extortion is peculiarly troubling fixed that DC’s Homeowner Assistance Fund was 1 of the past successful the state to open, with the afloat programme not opening until June 22, 2022,” Horng wrote successful a blog station urging action from the D.C. Council past month. “Moreover, the September 30, 2022, deadline is grossly incongruous with the scope of DC HAF, which whitethorn person capable funds to past for years.”

Reyes, from LEDC, said that immoderate HAF funds don’t get utilized instantly tin proceed to supply alleviation to homeowners indefinitely.

She added that borrowers who are approved for HAF alleviation volition spot the entirety of their owe debts covered, truthful agelong arsenic they are nether the $100,000 per household cap.

Attorneys from Legal Aid D.C., who correspond dozens of homeowners seeking alleviation from the HAF, said they person seen immoderate clients’ applications approved rapidly — successful nether 2 months — but getting bills paid is simply a antithetic story.

“Because determination is not a factual mode to code these delays, we deliberation the absorption should alternatively beryllium enactment into ineligible protections … truthful radical are not successful a authorities of limbo and accent that they whitethorn suffer their homes portion they’re waiting for HAF support and payment,” Horng said successful an interrogation earlier this month.

The hazard of removal is higher for condo owners who are down connected Condominium Owner Association (COA) fees since the process for instituting a lien oregon initiating a foreclosure arsenic a effect of unpaid COA fees successful D.C. is handled extracurricular of court. About 30,000 condos successful D.C. are owner-occupied, according to the D.C. Department of Housing and Community Development (DHCD).

Community advocates and lawyers said it seems that D.C. is prioritizing cases successful which condo fees are astatine issue. But that has near different homeowners feeling forgotten.

One homeowner — a lifelong nonmigratory of the Brookland vicinity successful Northeast Washington who was conscionable a fewer years distant from paying disconnected her owe erstwhile pandemic shutdowns outgo her her occupation — said she sent successful an exertion successful June, arsenic soon arsenic the programme opened up to homeowners successful each D.C. Zip codes.

Nearly 5 months later, she is inactive waiting to perceive whether she has been approved.

“When you spot the bills travel successful and the magnitude keeps going up, going up, going up, and they’re saying don’t interest astir it due to the fact that this programme is going to wage for it all, you commencement to wonder: How could that beryllium existent if everyone’s bills are expanding and nary 1 has gotten a response?” said the homeowner, who spoke connected the information of anonymity for fearfulness of jeopardizing her application.

“It’s not conscionable stress,” she added. “It’s anxiety, frustration, feeling helpless and feeling similar I’m an adult, I had power of my life, my finances each these years, but present it’s similar you person nary power implicit anything.”

D.C. Council subordinate Janeese Lewis George (D-Ward 4), who pushed for the assembly to widen its extortion for HAF applicants done the extremity of September, declined to accidental whether she would again effort to widen protections for HAF applicants. But, successful a connection to The Post, she said the authorities indispensable bash much to marque homeowners alert of the HAF and what it covers.

“Preventing foreclosures for radical who fell down during the pandemic is captious for preventing displacement and promoting Black homeownership,” Lewis George said. “I’d similar to spot DC grow outreach efforts truthful much residents tin instrumentality vantage of this program.”

Several advocates compared the HAF outreach effort unfavorably to the monolithic consciousness run astir the District’s rental assistance program, STAY DC, which doled retired hundreds of millions of dollars successful pandemic alleviation wealth to struggling renters and their landlords faster than astir different states did.

DHCD spokesperson Richard Livingstone successful an email defended the outreach effort, which helium called “extensive,” citing vigor appearances, TV ads and notices successful taxi cabs. In the last weeks of the foreclosure moratorium, helium said, “multiple email and substance blasts” were sent to homeowners reminding them to decorativeness their applications.

“For those who stay astatine hazard of foreclosure, DHCD is moving intimately with the judicial system, ineligible advocates and foreclosure prevention counselors to guarantee that judges are alert of applicants’ programme presumption astatine foreclosure hearings by providing regular reports to foreclosure counselors successful the tribunal room,” Livingstone wrote.

Musawwir has mislaid way of the fig of times she has had to explicate the presumption of her HAF exertion to lawyers, lenders and advocates. Every week oregon so, the slope sends a caller notice, threatening foreclosure.

Each caller for-sale motion successful her neighborhood, she said, sends her caput wandering down the acheronian paths of what-ifs.

“I can’t assistance it. I truly don’t privation to suffer my home, due to the fact that with everything that’s going on, wherever americium I going to beryllium capable to spend to find thing else?” she said. “Not successful D.C.”

Kyle Swenson contributed to this report.