Pa. takes over troubled mortgage relief program from contractor after complaints, backlogs

This story initially appeared on Highlight PA.

In an abrupt change, Pennsylvania’s struggling mortgage aid program will now not work with the non-public firm initially employed to run it, and can briefly cease accepting new purposes beginning Feb. 1 whereas it makes the transition.

The transfer comes lower than every week after a Highlight PA investigation discovered that this system has been struggling to get the knowledge it wants from mortgage firms, leaving householders greedy for solutions and ready months to get assist. Consequently, some candidates had their utilities shut off and noticed their credit score scores plummet.

The applying pause — introduced with only some days’ discover — will give this system time to handle a backlog of pending purposes and deal with the transition from the contractor’s software program programs, based on the Pennsylvania Housing Finance Company.

It’s unclear how lengthy this system shall be closed to new purposes. Householders with pending purposes is not going to must resubmit them, however they might want to register with the brand new system, a spokesperson for the company stated in a information launch. The company stated candidates will obtain an electronic mail with follow-up data.

The company didn’t reply to questions from Highlight PA about why it made the change.

This system, funded by $350 million in federal pandemic help, launched final February and covers mortgage and utility debt, delinquent property taxes, and different housing prices, in addition to ongoing mortgage funds for some householders.

However issues coordinating with mortgage firms left this system falling in need of its inner objective to get assist to householders inside 60 days of making use of. The common wait time, as of mid-December, was greater than twice as lengthy.

As of Jan. 30, this system had paid out roughly $94 million, a few quarter of the cash out there. In its first six months, Pennsylvania’s spending price was just like these of different states, lots of which have confronted related difficulties.

After Pennsylvania lawmakers determined the housing company would oversee this system, officers there outsourced the day-to-day administration due to the “large effort” concerned in rapidly ramping up a brand new and sophisticated program, based on an company e-newsletter.