Well , good morning , and I'm pleased to have a special guest with me this morning . He's from the Oregon Housing and Community Services Department , mr Ryan Vanderbink , and he is with the Home Ownership Division and he's got some very exciting news . The clock is running on this , but it's really good information . If you are in a pinch , ryan , good morning and thank you for being here .
Ruan VanderbinkGood morning . Thank you for having me .
Bill BatemanWell , I'm excited . I think you are best qualified to just kind of explain this , because this is your baby and it involves some good things for people in manufactured homes who may be looking at eviction for rent or rent eviction notices . So take it away , ryan .
Ruan VanderbinkYes , so I am the manager of the Homeowner Assistance Fund program , or HAF as I'm going to call it today , and we are hoping to help more folks out as we wind the program down , especially those that are most at risk of , say , manufactured home or floating home , eviction or foreclosure . A little background about the HALF program . It is a federal pandemic emergency response program enacted by the American Rescue Plan Act . It's administered at the federal level by the US Treasury . All 50 state governments , many US territories and many tribes operate their own HALF program with the funds . With the funds , the overall goal is to prevent foreclosures and maintain homeownership . For homeowners who were financially impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic , that means a loss of income or an increase in housing expenses that is directly related to the pandemic . In Oregon we can help homeowners get caught up on housing costs like mortgages , property taxes , HOA's , lot rent or mortgage fees , and for some low-income families we will also make a few ongoing payments to help boost housing stability for them .
Bill BatemanThat's outstanding . Now I understand the clock is ticking on this due to the program winding down , but you're still taking applications , Am I correct ?
Ruan VanderbinkYes , we are . We were allocated about $90 million in the beginning . We have a little under $8 million left , so our average award is about $26,500 . And so we estimate we can take about 300 new applications . And so while I say the average is $26,500 , we can actually help homeowners by providing up to $50,000 to help them reinstate their housing accounts . That's wonderful . We can put a lot of money at this .
Bill BatemanThat's great and , to be specific , this is only for homeowners getting close to foreclosure or lot rent eviction , and it has to come through a housing counselor . How does that work ?
Ruan VanderbinkYes , so for homeowners who are in foreclosure whether it's judicial , non-judicial or county tax foreclosure , or homeowners who are facing a park or marina eviction proceeding or having a 10-day notice , they will visit one of our local intake partners and you can find our intake partner list linked to our website at OregonHomeOwnerAssistanceorg . They have their own intake process , so please don't delay . If you're in one of these situations , Call up one of our intake partners in your area or the closest one , Meet with them . They have the ability to provide free foreclosure avoidance counseling , evaluate you for our eligibility criteria and , if you fit the eligibility criteria , they can help you prepare and submit the half application and walk you through the process as it goes through underwriting .
Bill BatemanThis sounds really good . I'll and this is statewide . Anybody within Oregon can qualify for this .
Ruan VanderbinkYes .
Bill BatemanWhat is the timeline , how long do we have until this thing closes down , and what happens to the money at the end ?
Ruan VanderbinkWe are planning to make our final payments in February of next year . We will most likely stop taking new applications sometime in October this year , based on the timeline of reviewing the applications , underwriting the information on our end , meeting our federal and state requirements , communicating with servicers parks , marinas , counties and coordinating everything and the information , coordinating , signing half loan documents which secures our assistance to the property and then we fund the application . So it does take some time to go through our process , which is why we're tentatively looking at October for final applications and , unfortunately , if there is money left over at the end , it goes back to the federal government .
Bill BatemanSo we don't want to waste it . We'd like to see as many people as possible get helped out . I know it takes time for this to happen . Does applying stop the clock ? Does it stop the eviction or the processes ? Will this keep the person from being evicted while their application is being processed ?
Ruan VanderbinkThat is entirely dependent on the person that is running the process . Hap is a voluntary program , so the servicer , the park owner , the marina owner has to agree to participate in our program and when they do , they also have to work with us and in many cases we are successful in postponing or pausing the process that is going on . We can postpone foreclosure dates if we are able to work with the foreclosing party . If somebody's in eviction , we can also ask their attorney to pause the eviction process while we evaluate and fund an application . Some are willing to work with us , some are not . It's entirely dependent on who is running the process .
Bill BatemanWould seem better to get paid than have an empty home . But you can never understand totally what's going on in a person's mind .
Ruan VanderbinkI guess that's how I feel too . Okay , we do our best to pause or postpone things while we're evaluating an application .
Bill BatemanWell , I'm going to include the links , and the link is to OregonHomeownersAssistanceorg if they need to reach out and get more information on this program .
Ruan VanderbinkThat'd be great .
Bill BatemanAre phone calls appropriate , or does that just delay the process ?
Ruan VanderbinkYes , we can take phone calls , but at this point we will refer people to the intake partners , so you can also call us and locate your closest intake partner too .
Bill BatemanAll right , this sounds very good . So the clock is running . If you are a person in a manufactured home facing eviction or foreclosure for lot rent or property taxes , here is an opportunity to get some help . The email address and the web address is going to be in the podcast connect , and this is a great program , ryan . Is there anything else we should be talking about before I let you go ? I know you're a busy person .
Ruan VanderbinkI have three things that might be relevant to your listeners . I mentioned that our assistance is secured to the property in the form of a loan , and that loan is a no interest , no payment loan that is forgiven after five years if they still maintain and own the home as their primary residence , and own the home as their primary residence If they sell . They have to repay all or a portion , based on a forgiveness schedule , and the way this works for manufactured housing is if you own the land , we will prepare a mortgage , and that mortgage is recorded in the county title records . If you own the structure but you're in a park and you don't own the land , or you're a floating home in a marina , we take a security interest in the structure with the appropriate state agency . These loans are non-recourse , which means our interest is in the property , and so in most cases , if somebody is later foreclosed like they're still in a bad situation , or if they have to walk away , we're not going to enforce the loan against somebody individually , and I think that's an important point .
Bill BatemanThat really is yes .
Ruan VanderbinkAnother thing that we have done that's pretty innovative . That , I think , is we ran into a problem with a lot of manufactured homeowners in a park where they did not transfer or register their ownership with the Department of Consumer and Business Services manufactured home database of ownership . That's a requirement for our program , and so we ran into this government catch-22 because to register you have to be current on your county taxes and most people applying for our program are not . So we've developed a workaround process so that we can help people who would otherwise be eligible for our program . We will work with their application , approve their application , conditionally we will pay the county personal property taxes . The person then registers their ownership with DCBS and the registration that we need , and when they are the owner we will take our security interest and then we will pay any lot rent or mortgage that is due . So we'll still be able to work with people , and this usually involves close collaboration with those housing counselors I talked about or an attorney .
Bill BatemanThat is innovative as the dickens . That is very good . Those Catch-22s can really hamstring a process , so good work there . Anything else that comes to mind ?
Ruan VanderbinkYes , one last thing I mentioned the housing counselors that we're working with . The HAF program is also sponsoring free or low-cost legal representation for homeowners who are facing foreclosure , lot rent eviction or that may have title issues or just questions about what their rights are , and so listeners can learn more about this opportunity , which we call the Oregon Homeowner Legal Assistance Project , by reviewing the resources webpage , the last tab on our website at oregonhomeownerassistanceorg . It's a really great opportunity that will be around as long as HAP is operating , so not that much longer , but for anybody that needs that legal assistance , there's an opportunity for it , free or low cost .
Bill BatemanThat's exceptional , because it's always good to consult with an attorney when you're getting to the point of going to court . You don't want to try and do this yourself . At least that's my opinion . Yes , all right , ryan , I think we've covered
it all . Thank you very much for being here today , taking time out of your busy schedule , and thank you and the folks at Oregon Housing and Community Services Department . It sounds like you're doing some great work there , and thank you very much .
Ruan VanderbinkYeah , thank you for having me . We're doing our best to help as many people as we can .
Bill BatemanOutstanding . Have a good day .
Ruan VanderbinkThank you .
Bill BatemanThis program was produced by Retired Guy Productions .