Home Rescue Fair draws more than 100 families

Local News

Related Photos

Matt Hamilton/The Daily Citizen Currey Hitchens with Georgia Legal Services helps a resident at the Home Rescue Fair Saturday at the Trade Center.
Matt Hamilton/The Daily Citizen America Gruner helps residents with their home foreclosure issues at the Home Rescue Fair at the Trade Center Saturday.
Matt Hamilton/The Daily Citizen Ambar Carvalho with the Federal Trade Commission answers a question about foreclosures during her lecture at the Home Rescue Fair at the Trade Center Saturday.

Discussion

Welcome to our online comments feature. To join the discussion, you must first register with Disqus and verify your email address. Once you do, your comments will post automatically. We welcome your thoughts and your opinions, including unpopular ones. We ask only that you keep the conversation civil and clean. We reserve the right to remove comments that are obscene, racist or abusive and statements that are false or unverifiable. Repeat offenders will be blocked. You may flag objectionable comments for review by a moderator.

comments powered by Disqus

July 17, 2010

Rachel Brown Dalton Daily Citizen

DALTON — Five months ago, Debby Roberson was doing OK. Then her husband — who was also her employer — died unexpectedly in March, and she lost most of her income.

On Saturday, the Sugar Valley resident found herself sitting in a Foreclosure 101 class offered by University of Georgia employees, surrounded by a dozen or so other local residents, all of whom were trying to learn something that could help them save their homes.

“If I don’t get more income, it’s quite possible (I’ll lose my house),” she said. “I must keep on looking for work.”

Gaile Jennings, executive director of the Dalton-Whitfield Community Development Corporation, estimated that more than 100 families attended the Home Rescue Fair at the Northwest Georgia Trade and Convention Center on Saturday. The event was also sponsored by the Alliance for Stabilizing Our Communities, an organization created by the National Urban League, National Council of La Raza and the National Coalition for Asian Pacific American Community Development.

Classes at the fair were offered in both English and Spanish.

“The two biggest reasons that people have for getting behind on their mortgage is there’s been a major medical crisis or loss of income,” Jennings said. “In this market, what we’re seeing the most of is just loss of hours. They went not just from overtime to 40 but overtime to 32.”

The fair comes at a time when foreclosure rates for the Dalton metro area continue to increase with the rate among outstanding loans rising from 3.22 percent in May 2009 to 3.27 percent in May 2010, according to CoreLogic data, which tracks real estate trends across the country. The national foreclosure rate is 3.15 percent.

Jennings said Murray County and Whitfield County together average about 100 foreclosures a month.

The area also continues to be hit hard by the double punch of lower wages and fewer jobs. In addition to fewer hours for many workers, the metro area of Dalton and Murray counties lost 1,600 jobs from June 2009 to June 2010, according to figures from the Georgia Department of Labor.

Chattanooga resident Arvill Lawrence was one of dozens of attendees who met with their lenders at the fair in an effort to renegotiate their loans or go through other actions to try to save their homes. The lender representatives were loss mitigation teams trying to save loans rather than debt collectors trying to get money, organizers said. Lawrence, who is on unemployment, said he still doesn’t know what the outcome will be, but he’s optimistic his meeting with his lender today was a show of good faith.

“It showed Wells Fargo that we were willing to come all the way to Dalton to try to do something,” he said.

Attorneys from Georgia Legal Services were also on hand to offer advice for those seeking help. Cynthia Gibson said representatives from her office spoke one on one with about half a dozen clients. She cautioned that mortgage holders need to be aware that loan modifications should be offered for free and there are many scams that attempt to get people to pay for one.

Advice from the office is available for free by calling (888) 408-1004.

Mark Cooper, a Trion resident who works in Dalton, said he is working to save the house he, his wife, their two children and two other relatives are living in. He said he didn’t believe his lender was upfront with him about what was needed to avoid escalating financial problems.

The problems began when he received a pay cut, helped a close relative who had open heart surgery and had some unforeseen house costs. Now he’s stopped paying into his retirement, cut off his land line phone and shut off his cable television. He is now $7,000 behind in payments but only six years away from owning his house, he said. He said only time will tell if meeting with his lender on Saturday was helpful.

“But I’m glad I got a face-to-face interview with somebody there,” he added.

Akilah Mydell, a program specialist who works for UGA’s Cooperative Extension Service as a financial advisor in Clayton County, taught two sessions of a Foreclosure 101 class. It’s important to remember that Federal Housing Authority loans become available again as soon as three years after a foreclosure or bankruptcy. The caveat is the loan applicant must have a credit score of at least 620 and no delinquent payments in the past 12 months.

“It’s like, let’s not cry over spilled milk — let’s find a napkin to wipe it up,” said Mydell, who was a victim of foreclosure herself following a divorce. “Whatever happens, you will get through it, I promise you.”