Coming out to save their homes

Homeowners flock to St. john's for foreclosure prevention seminar

By CARLOS VILLATORO
Napa Valley Register

More than 100 homeowners from around the Napa Valley came out to a foreclosure seminar this weekend, seeking information on how to prevent the mortgage crunch from hurting them.

Napa Valley Community Housing hosted the free seminar at St. John the Baptist Catholic Church on Sunday. Eighteen specialists from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development came to Napa to counsel homeowners.

“It was a complete success,” said Mary Ann Cleary, event organizer and farmworker advocate for NVCH. “The goal was to bring education and guidance to people who either didn’t really understand their mortgages or are facing the possibility of foreclosure.”

Cleary said the idea to hold the forum came from Pete Richmond, the owner of Silverado Farming Company, who saw that some of his Spanish-speaking employees were facing mounting pressure from mortgages they obtained in the last couple of years. It started when Richmond phoned Cleary to ask for some advice regarding some of his workers who were losing their homes.

“Pete said ‘You know, it would be nice if we could have a forum,’” Cleary said.

In January 2008, 100 notices of default were issued in Napa County, compared to 35 in January 2007, according to Cleary. Estimates show that 78 percent of homeowners who receive default letters from their lenders walk away from their homes instead of trying to negotiate with their lenders, she said.

Cleary organized local and state mortgage experts to participate at the seminar and sent out 215 invitations to homeowners who were default on their properties, she said. On Sunday, the seminar began after the noon mass at St. John’s, and drew 250 individuals, mostly Latinos.

Cleary said the reason so many Latinos showed up to the seminar was because they represent such a large percentage of first-time homebuyers.

“Last year, they were the first-time homebuyers with the adjustable (mortgage) rates that they couldn’t understand,” she said. “They did the entire negotiation for the house in Spanish and did all the paperwork in English.”

For the most part, counselors found that homeowners didn’t fully understand the terms of their loans, Cleary said. Counselors saw only few homeowners who were in the actual process of foreclosure, she said.

Seminar panelists included Maeve Elise Brown, co-director of Housing and Economic Rights Advocates; Jose Luis Trevino, regional director of ACORN Housing; Steve Cogswell, of Fair Housing Napa Valley; Diana Dorame, Legal Aid of Napa Valley; Todd Emerson, chief executive officer of Springboard Credit Counseling; Melissa Rodezno, constituent services for Rep. Mike Thompson, D- St. Helena, and a representative from the Napa County District Attorney’s Office.

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