New numbers show the foreclosure crisis has continued to get worse in North Carolina. State lawmakers are now stepping in and hoping to find a fix, while housing counselors are now one focus.
RALEIGH -- New numbers show the foreclosure crisis has continued to get worse in North Carolina. State lawmakers are now stepping in and hoping to find a fix, while housing counselors are now one focus.
Louise Mack helps people save their homes as a housing counselor, but these days there's simply not enough hours in the day.
"She could not have anybody on our schedule on Monday and by Monday afternoon she has a full schedule of people calling," Mack said.
Most people facing foreclosure often wait until it's too late to get help. Lawmakers want to help change that fact.
"We've learned if there was an intermediary to talk to the borrower that the chances a foreclosure is going to go full swing is substantially reduced," Rep. Dan Blue, D-Wake, said.
Most counseling offices are nonprofit and are free to customers, and they must raise their own money to stay open. Housing advocates are hoping the state will help out with more funding to put counseling in more counties.
Most housing advocates do feel that laws passed in 2007 will have an impact on preventing foreclosures, but they want more funding to help people going through foreclosures now.
"We need more nonprofit attorneys to help represent people that are facing foreclosures, and we need to make the foreclosure process more fair so that people who are in these bad loans have an opportunity to challenge the loans before they lost their homes, and right now the process does not allow that opportunity," said Al Ripley from the N.C. Justice Center.
Help is needed now with an expected 60,000 foreclosure filings this year, but lawmakers don't get back to work until mid-May.
There is a hotline that will connect you to North Carolina housing counselors. To reach that hotline, call 1-888-995-HOPE. The lines are open 24 hours a day, seven days a week.