Almost half of the 20,000 Illinois consumers who have participated so far in the year-old national mortgage foreclosure settlement have received loan principal writedowns or the debts have been extinguished, new data released Thursday shows.

Of the 20,044 Illinois borrowers who have received assistance from the nation's five largest servicers between March 1 and Dec. 31, 3,794 received principal writedowns on first or second mortgages while another 5,928 borrowers saw their second lien obligations erased, according to a report released Thursday by the independent mortgage monitor overseeing the settlement.