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HELP Averts Foreclosure

Interest-free loans available to unemployed homeowners to cover mortgage until they find a job

by: Lezlie Patterson, from: AARP Bulletin, March 1, 2012

South Carolina's HELP Program has money to avoid foreclosure, woman in backyard

Sarah Symmons was able to save her Columbia home — and her muscadine vine — from foreclosure with an interest-free loan from the South Carolina Homeownership and Employment Lending Program. — Photo by Andy McMillan/Redux

For years, Sarah Symmons toted a potted muscadine vine every time she moved to a new rental house. Nine years ago, she bought a home in Columbia and finally planted it in her yard.

After she lost her job of 20 years and temporary work dried up, Symmons went on unemployment last year. But it wasn't enough to keep up with the mortgage payments. At 60, she was on the brink of losing not just her vine, but her home as well.

Enter the South Carolina Homeownership and Employment Lending Program (SC HELP). The federally funded program provided an interest-free loan that allowed Symmons to pay her mortgage while she continued looking for a job.

The program helps borrowers facing foreclosure due to circumstances beyond their control, such as unemployment, substantial reduction in self-employed income, catastrophic health expenses, divorce or the death of a spouse.

More than 43 percent of the roughly 3,900 South Carolina homeowners seeking assistance last year were 50 or older.

Symmons is one of many South Carolinians who have faced losing their home. Last year, the state's 2011 foreclosure rate was 1.43 percent, roughly the same as the national average, according to the foreclosure listing firm RealtyTrac Inc.

South Carolina, which was awarded more than $295 million and began the program in January 2011, is one of 18 states and the District of Columbia that received money from the federal government's Hardest Hit Fund to help homeowners avoid foreclosure. SC HELP hopes to assist up to 33,000 homeowners at high risk of foreclosure.

"We're focused on helping folks bridge across a time of difficulty," said Matt Rivers, director of SC HELP.

The program can help qualifying homeowners three ways:

Provide a one-time loan of up to $20,000 to bring them current if they are behind on their mortgage payments.
Make monthly payments to lenders for up to 12 or 24 months (depending on county) to a maximum of $36,000.
Provide a one-time grant of up to $5,000 directly to a homeowner transitioning to renting when mortgages cannot be salvaged and a short sale or deed in lieu of foreclosure is completed.

Next: Older people among the hardest hit. >>