A cry for more mortgage help

By John L. Micek

HARRISBURG — — A coalition representing 30 housing, church and community organizations called on state lawmakers Tuesday to restore funding to a now-shuttered, three-decade-old state program that provided emergency mortgage assistance to struggling homeowners.

The rally in the Capitol Rotunda comes as funding for a federal program that also provides mortgage assistance — and had acted as a stopgap since the state program was closed in late June — is set to expire on Friday.

Pennsylvania's Homeowners Emergency Assistance Program, or HEMAP, was shut down on June 30 after lawmakers appropriated $2 million for it in the 2011-12 state budget. The Pennsylvania Housing Finance Agency, which administered the program, said that wasn't enough to keep it running.

Activists, organized as a PA Save Our Homes Coalition, asked lawmakers to approve what's known as a "supplemental appropriation" to revive the state program and run it through the end of the fiscal year, which ends June 30, 2012. Activists are seeking $15 million, well above the $7.8 million the state House had unsuccessfully sought for the program earlier this year.

Alan Jennings of the Community Action Committee of the Lehigh Valley cast the fight as an economic one, arguing that foreclosed homes drove down property values across entire communities. "Do we believe in equality and justice?" he asked. "If so, then we need to have HEMAP funded."

The state finished the 2010-11 fiscal year on July 1 with a budget surplus of roughly $785 million. The Corbett administration has said it wants to use some of that money to help pay for the cleanup from this month's flooding.

Sen. Vincent Hughes, D-Philadelphia, accused the Corbett administration and majority Republicans who control the House and Senate, of ignoring the plight of struggling homeowners by not spending the money.

"He said to hell with y'all," Hughes said, in an apparent reference to Corbett. "He said you don't matter. And the Republican majorities in the House and Senate went along with it."

Administration spokesman Eric Shirk rebuked Hughes, stressing that the administration cares about Pennsylvania's citizens and has tried to ease their economic burden by passing a no-tax increase spending plan.

The administration will not support a supplemental appropriation, Shirk said, because "you really can't say you have a surplus if your deficit is $4.2 billion."

Since June, the state has been steering homeowners into a federally funded mortgage assistance program. The deadline for applications for the $105 million in assistance allocated to Pennsylvania was Sept. 14. And the state has until Sept. 30 to send its paperwork to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

Agency spokesman Scott Elliott said the state expects to commit the full $105 million. In its final week, the state received 2,000 applications for the federal assistance, 800 in a single day, Elliott said.

Late last week, U.S. Sen. Bob Casey, D-Pa., introduced legislation giving HUD an extra three months — from the Sept. 30 deadline — to process applications submitted for the program, known as the Emergency Homeowners Loan Program, or HELP.