Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, January 5, 1993 TAG: 9301050062
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: DOUGLAS PARDUE STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
SUING UNCLE SAM WINS MORTGAGE SUPPORT
THE NEW YEAR brought good news to Janet Hayes and her two daughters. But, Hayes wonders, what about others who have fallen behind on their mortgage payments and are looking to the federal government for help?\ Under pressure from a federal judge in Roanoke, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development has changed its mind and decided to help an out-of-work Roanoke County women keep her home.
The federal housing agency earlier had rejected Janet Hayes' application for a program designed to help people who, through no fault of their own, can't meet payments on homes purchased with loans insured by the Federal Housing Administration.
With the help of Roanoke's Legal Aid Society, Hayes sued HUD last year, contending that the agency, especially its Richmond office, routinely denied help to qualified homeowners.
Figures obtained by the Roanoke Times & World-News showed that the Richmond office accepts just one applicant in 15, one of the highest rejection rates in the country. The national average is one in four.
Legal Aid attorney Henry Woodward said HUD had, for all practical purposes, abolished a program set up by Congress to help homeowners remain homeowners.
At a hearing in Roanoke last month, U.S. District Judge Sam Wilson agreed that Hayes seemed "the very kind of person Congress had in mind" when it created its "loan assignment program."
Wilson delayed making a ruling on Hayes' suit and told HUD to reconsider her application.
Under the program, HUD is to take over mortgage payments for up to three years to give a qualified homeowner time to recover financially. The homeowner then must begin repaying HUD.
Hayes was unable to keep up the $560 monthly mortgage on her North Roanoke County home after her ex-husband ignored a divorce agreement to pay the mortgage. She has been unable to work since 1982, when an accident caused her to have seizures.
HUD had rejected her for the program on grounds that she didn't seem to have any real prospect of getting back on her feet financially within three years.
Hayes and her attorney, Woodward, contended that HUD ignored information showing that she should be recovered and able to work within a year as a medical technician or medical secretary.
Woodward said Monday that, after reconsidering Hayes' application, HUD agreed to place Hayes on the mortgage assignment program effective this month. "I'm glad to see they've done what they're supposed to be doing," Woodward said.
HUD said only that it decided to accept Hayes in the program because of new information Hayes submitted.
Hayes said she spent all of last year afraid she and her two daughters would end up on the street.
"What a way to end one year and begin another," Hayes said. "I tell you, I feel like if I got any more excited I would explode."
But, she said, she's troubled that she had to struggle so hard to make HUD to do what it was supposed to do.
"There's got to be something wrong in Virginia with the Richmond office," Hayes said. "I saw how easy it was that I might have lost my home had I not really fought and gotten hold of the right people to help. But what about other people? I'm hoping something good will come out of this."