Activists Call For Home Mortgage Program To Be Re-Funded.

By John L. Micek

A coalition of about 30 housing, church and community organizations called on state lawmakers Tuesday to restore funding to a three-decade-old state program that provides 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 shuttered in July -- is set to end on Sept. 30.

Pennsylvania’s Homeowners Emergency Mortgage Assistance Program, or HEMAP, was shut down at the end of June after lawmakers appropriated just $2 million for it in the 2011-2012 state budget. The Pennsylvania Housing Finance Agency, which administers the program, said that wasn’t enough to keep it running and pulled the plug.

Activists on Tuesday called for lawmakers to approve what’s known as a “supplemental appropriation” to revive the program and run it through the end of the current fiscal year, which ends on June 30, 2012.

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? If so, then we need to have HEMAP funded,” he said.

The state finished the 2010-2011 fiscal year on July 1 with a budget surplus of roughly $785 million. The Corbett administration has said it wants to use 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.”

The administration could not immediately be reached for comment on Hughes' remarks. 

If there’s cash left over to do a supplemental appropriation, then “I and others in the building believe HEMAP would be an important component of that,” Senate Majority Whip Pat Browne, R-Lehigh, said.

Since the end of June, the state has been steering homeowners into a federally funded mortgage assistance program. The deadline for submitting 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 with 800 of those filed 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.

In a statement, Casey’s office said thousands of Americans, including those in Pennsylvania, submitted their applications on time, but have not yet had them reviewed.