Foreclosure services

Funds to keep people in homes cut; tiny staff still has 60 cases

Prevention support services to keep people in homes may be cut.

New Yorkers in jeopardy of losing their homes were dealt a blow on Thursday as new state budget figures were released that appear to omit a critical funding request from providers of foreclosure prevention services.

The budget season got off to a bad start for the providers in January, when Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo’s $174 billion spending plan failed to include the $20 million in funding that had in recent years been paid from a pool of money controlled by the state attorney general’s office. It is set to run out on March 31.

The Empire Justice Center, a statewide legal services organization, said the services help people keep their homes and also put abandoned properties back on the local tax rolls.

“Cutting this money would be penny wise and pound foolish,” said Empire Justice Center Vice President Kristin Brown.

Without maintaining the current levels of funding, she estimated that two-thirds of the services provided around the state would be eliminated.

Testifying before the state Legislature in February, state Homes and Community Renewal Commissioner Ruthanne Visnauskas said the money is “obviously critical.”

Troy Rehabilitation and Improvement Program’s director of community development, Hilary Lamishaw, said the state funding is needed to preserve their two employees who work on foreclosure prevention.

“You can’t do the foreclosure prevention work without some very specific skills,” Lamishaw said.

If organizations like TRIP, Better Neighborhoods in Schenectady and Affordable Housing Partnership in Albany stop offering these services, Lamishaw said, vulnerable New Yorkers will likely turn to scam artists for help.

“When we say, ‘there is no one to replace our services when this money goes away,’ we mean there is no one responsible,” she said.

The uncertainty about the future of the funding has led the program to stop taking on new cases, and the staff is focusing on resolving their caseload of 60 cases before they might be out of a job in April.

“If we know there is money in the budget we will do everything we can to keep our experts on staff,” Lamishaw said. “To lose the technical expertise would really set us back a couple of years.”

Providers had hoped the governor’s budget amendments introduced last month would include the funding to ensure there wouldn’t be a gap in services, but it was not included. Brown said some employees have already begun looking for jobs, as the non-profit organizations aren’t in a position to keep them employed if funding is interrupted.

Both house of the Legislature proposed investing the money in their budget plans, but that’s no guarantee they will prioritize the funding during negotiations with the governor.

State Division of Budget spokesman Freeman Klopott said conversations with the state attorney general’s office about funding the program are “ongoing.”

The bad news on Thursday came with the release of updated budget numbers from the Legislature on additional amounts of spending that have been agreed upon. Only $10 million more in spending, compared to the governor’s plan, was included for environmental, housing and agriculture priorities combined.

“Obviously that is incredibly concerning,” Brown said.

While the funding was initiated in response to the housing crisis that resulted from the great recession, Lamishaw said there is still a high demand for their services due to increasing property taxes and reverse mortgages.