Keep Your Homes, Californians

by Doug Love

“Keep Your Home California” is a state-run program paid for by the U.S. Treasury Department’s “Hardest Hit Fund”, a 2 billion dollar program. We’ve received a big response from people with questions about the program, and from people who sent us their success stories from working with the program, we’re running some of the information again:

Keep Your Home California has four parts:

  • Mortgage help for the unemployed.
  • Mortgage help for people with “documented financial hardship.”
  • Relocation help for people in the midst of a short sale.
  • Reduction of principal balance on mortgages.

Keep Your Home California has helped close to 8,000 low- and moderate-income households that are behind on loan payments or close to default, according to agency leaders.

The program has recently made changes in eligibility guidelines, opening up help to more people.

“This expanded eligibility will allow more families to qualify and receive greater assistance,” said California Housing Finance Agency Executive Director Claudia Cappio. “We are continually evaluating our experience, and making adjustments like these based on the initial results of the Keep Your Home California program.”

The new changes include:

  • Allowing homeowners who completed “cash-out” mortgage refinancing to take part in the four programs.
  • Allowing borrowers who own more than one property to apply. Program officials said this will be particularly helpful to those who co-signed on properties for family members.
  • Offering mortgage aid to unemployed borrowers for nine months, instead of six. Such homeowners can get up to $3,000 a month. To qualify, you must receive unemployment benefits.
  • Reinstating up to $20,000 in past-due mortgage payments instead of the previous $15,000 cap.

Most lenders, but not all, participate in the Keep Your Home California program. For a list, go to www.keepyourhomecalifornia.org/participating, or call 888-954-5337.

Good luck to you who might benefit from this program. I’d love to hear your experiences.