KEVIN DIETSCH/POOL VIA BLOOMBERG VIA GETTY IMAGES
WRONG
TURN
Other homeowners say the
mortgage company they turned
to for help lost documents, didn’t
return phone calls and otherwise
turned what should have been a
simple financial transaction into
an existential nightmare, one that
sometimes ended in an unnecessary foreclosure.
According to one recent academic study, 800,000 families were
rejected improperly or booted from
the government’s primary homeowner relief option, the Home Af-
HUFFINGTON
11.04.12
fordable Modification Program,
or HAMP, as a result of errors or
misconduct on the part of mortgage companies. Assuming four
people per household, that means
a population roughly equivalent to
the entire metropolitan area where
Obama gave his speech, including Phoenix, Mesa and nearby
Scottsdale were wrongly pushed
toward foreclosure.
“Just when I think it can’t get
worse something else happens,”
said Mary Diab, an Overland Park,
Kansas homeowner locked in a
three-year battle with JPMorgan Chase that began when she
Attorney
Gen. Eric
Holder left,
and Housing
and Urban
Development
Sec. right,
look on as
Obama
speaks about
the details
of a housing
settlement.