Cabrillo Economic to provide help for desperate homeowners
By Sylvie Belmond belmond@theacorn.com

In an effort to help area residents avoid foreclosure, the Ventura County Community Development Corp. is launching "A New Way Home," Homeownership Preservation Campaign.

VCCD is a subsidiary of Cabrillo Economic Development Corp., whose homeownership program manager Laura Rocha has been visiting local city officials in recent weeks to promote and gather support for the program. Foreclosures, she said, affect neighborhoods negatively and pose an economic strain on communities.

Changes in the real estate market in the last few years created new opportunities for homeowners and homebuyers, but at the same time enabled some lenders to take advantage of inexperienced consumers, said Bob Fickas of Neighborhood Services of America, an organization that provides services to nonprofit groups serving local communities.

"The sub-prime mortgage market is where most of the problems have occurred," he said.

Sub-prime lenders usually lend to people with poor credit scores. The loans start out with a low interest rate, but that rate can increase sharply and make payments unaffordable for some borrowers.

Such borrowers may get these loans assuming they'll be able to refinance before the interest rate hike, but they often forget to take a costly prepayment penalty into consideration.

According to First American Real Estate Solutions, there are about 2,600 residents in Thousand Oaks, 2,000 in Simi Valley, 1,990 in Camarillo and 1,250 in Moorpark who purchased a home with a sub-prime loan

Those people are at risk of losing their homes because their low interest rates are expiring or are about to expire.

Numerous foreclosures within a particular area can destabilize entire neighborhoods because they reduce property values and tax revenues, Rocha said.

Foreclosure also forces defaulting homeowners into an unsettling, often devastating relocation. It damages credit and impedes future financial opportunities as well, said Rocha.

Vulnerable residents can take action before they are evicted.

The Homeownership Preservation Campaign was created to educate the community about the dangers of abusive real estate and lending practices, Rocha said. In addition to budgeting and debt management counseling, residents may also be able to get new loans.

For more information about the program, call (888) 995HOPE.

In addition to assisting homeowners who are at risk of foreclosure, the program also helps homeowners who were targeted by predatory lenders that used aggressive and deceptive marketing methods to charge excessive rates and fees, Rocha said. In the event of predatory abuse, Cabrillo may also refer clients to the district attorney's office for legal assistance.

The new program goes beyond just helping to solve consumers' money problems. Through education and financial management workshops, families can learn to budget and manage their finances in order to avoid more debt and protect their investments, said Bertha Garcia, director of Cabrillo's NeighborWorks Home Ownership Center.