About 30 homeowners and housing advocates protested at a California Housing Finance Agency meeting on Thursday, saying the state agency isn't doing enough to keep people in their homes.
Wearing bright yellow T-shirts saying "Beware of Loan Sharks," members of the Neighborhood Assistance Corporation of America said that CalHFA and its Keep Your Home California program have excluded housing counselors like NACA from the state program.
"This has been an absolute failure," said Bruce Marks, founder and CEO of NACA, a Boston-based nonprofit organization that says it is working with 110,000 distressed homeowners around the state.
The CalHFA administers the $2 billion Keep Your Home California program, which uses federal stimulus money to help distressed homeowners.
The program offers as much as $3,000 a month to homeowners who have lost their jobs, up to $15,000 to those falling behind on their mortgages, and up to $5,000 in relocation assistance for people who lose their homes.
Critics like Marks say the program doesn't reach enough people.
Since its launch last year, Keep Your Home California has assisted 11,000 homeowners and has committed about $220 million. The agency has until 2017 to spend its federal funds.
Diane Richardson, program director for Keep Your Home California, said CalHFA Executive Director Claudia Cappio met with NACA members after the agency's board meeting at the Holiday Inn Sacramento-Capital Plaza hotel.
Both sides agreed to continue discussions about potential partnerships, she said.
CalHFA works with 37 housing counseling organizations around the state to help homeowners facing foreclosure. Richardson said it selected the counseling agencies through a request for proposal process, and NACA did not apply.
As a community advocacy and homeownership organization, NACA is well known in housing circles. Through its "Save the Dream" events, the group's counselors have worked with tens of thousands of distressed homeowners. A five-day event at Cal Expo in October 2010 attracted about 40,000 people.
Marks said his group approached CalHFA nearly a year ago about partnership opportunities but was rebuffed.
"This is beyond mismanagement," Marks said. "Everyday, people are losing their homes because of incompetence."
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