Freddie Mac Gives $10.5 Million in Grants for Foreclosure Prevention

Freddie Mac (FRE) said Friday that it had awarded $10.5 million in grants to housing counseling organizations to use for their outreach, education and foreclosure prevention efforts to help troubled borrowers. Much of the grant funding — nearly $6.4 million — will go to the HOPE NOW Alliance, Freddie said in a press statement. Two consumer advocacy groups, the Center for Responsible Lending and the Neighborhood Assistance Corporation of America, also received substantial grants of $1 million and $500,000 under the program, respectively. “Although the challenges facing today’s housing market go beyond any one company’s ability to resolve, Freddie Mac is working with the non-profit organizations who are in the trenches to make a real difference for many of America’s borrowers,” said Richard Syron, Freddie Mac’s CEO. It’s worth noting that the $10.5 million in funding disbursements is the result of a November settlement agreement reached between OFHEO and former Freddie Mac CEO Leland Brendsel. The grants will enable the non-profit organizations to add and train staff, pay operational expenses and support outreach campaigns to borrowers having difficulty making their mortgage payments, especially subprime borrowers. Freddie Mac said its servicers are currently working out roughly 1,000 loans it owns each week, with 90 percent of work outs keeping borrowers in their home. For more information, visit http://www.freddiemac.com. Disclosure: The author held no positions in FRE when this story was originally published. HW reporters and writers follow a strict disclosure policy, the first in the mortgage trade.