| Tuesday, February 12, 2008 1:40 PM | Article Font Size   |
WASHINGTON -- Homeowners threatened with foreclosure would in some instances get a 30-day reprieve under an initiative the Bush administration announced Tuesday.
Dubbed "Project Lifeline," the program will be available to people who have taken out all types of mortgages, not just the high-cost subprime loans that have been the focus of previous relief efforts.
The program was put together by six of the nation's largest financial institutions, which service almost 50 percent of the nation's mortgages.
These lenders say they will contact homeowners who are 90 or more days overdue on their monthly mortgage payments. The homeowners will be given the opportunity to put the foreclosure process on pause for 30 days while the lenders try to work out a way to make the mortgage more affordable to homeowners.
"Project Lifeline is a valuable response, literally a lifeline, for people on the brink of the final steps in foreclosure," Housing and Urban Development Secretary Alphonso Jackson said at a joint news conference with Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson.
He said the goal was to provide a temporary pause in the foreclosure process "long enough to find a way out" by letting homeowners and lenders negotiate a more affordable mortgage.
Paulson said the new effort was just one of a number of approaches the administration was pursuing with the mortgage industry to deal with the country's worst housing slump in more than two decades.
