Mortgage bills are coming again; $10 billion in aid may arrive first
Program sets its own
Hundreds of members of the Ho-chunk Nation were put out of work when the pandemic forced casinos and other businesses to close, only worsening the plight of a 7,800-member tribe whose unemployment rate was over 30% even before the coronavirus arrived.
Now, with winter coming to Wisconsin and many of its members worried about heating — and, in some cases, keeping — their homes, a federal program aimed at the country’s most vulnerable homeowners is providing a lifeline.
“Forty percent of Ho-chunk are homeowners,” said Neil Whitegull, executive director of the tribe’s Housing and Community Development Agency. “And we have a lot of intergenerational families.”
The tribe is an early beneficiary of the $10 billion federal Homeowner Assistance Fund, part of the $1.9 trillion relief plan enacted by Congress and the Biden administration. The legislation gives state, territorial and tribal governments wide latitude to help homeowners with expenses, with priority given to those who live in an area of “persistent poverty” or belong to a group that has been the subject of historical racial, ethnic or cultural discrimination.
About $1 billion has been distributed, fully funding smaller efforts such as those of the Hochunk Nation and financing pilot projects along with states’ costs for establishing programs.
This week, New York became the first state to receive final approval for its plan.
Gov. Kathy Hochul said in a statement that New York would distribute nearly $539 million for homeowners who were “at the greatest risk of foreclosure or displacement.”
The Homeowner Assistance Fund will be crucial for stillstruggling homeowners now that other measures — particularly the forbearance programs that put mortgage payments on hold for millions of Americans — are coming to an end.
“Time is of the essence because the foreclosures will be starting next year,” said Alys Cohen, a staff attorney with the National Consumer Law Center.
Cassandra Moreno, who only recently returned to work as an accountant at the Ho-chunk casino in Madison, Wis., said she and her husband will apply for help with their $1,500 monthly mortgage payment when the tribe’s program opens this week.
Moreno, 26, said her husband, a gymnastics instructor, was not working yet, making it a challenge to meet the bills associated with a three-bedroom home and three children, even with unemployment benefits, relief checks from the tribe and child tax credit payments.
“It all comes out of savings, and that is kind of dwindling,” she said.
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