HopeNow - 800 MN Families Served!

Yesterday's HopeNow Borrower Workshop at the St. Paul RiverCentre was a complete success!

Dozens of volunteers worked tirelessly to make sure everything ran smoothly... nearly 30 non-profit foreclosure specialists met with hundreds of homeowners, dozens of social service agencies and assistance programs shared their programs with homeowners, and

Most importantly:

800 Minnesota Families were served!

We'll be following up in the next few days with testimonials/quotes, photos from the event - and information an the families served.

Even though the event has passed, the Center is leaving the event information on our website for a few days. Feel free to check out the list of participants, here.

TODAY IS THE DAY - HopeNow Workshop In St. Paul

This is a short post to remind all our readers / subscribers / email recipients that the HopeNow Borrower Workshop is TODAY!

June 4, 2009 2:00 – 8:00 p.m.
(Open House - come at any time!)

St. Paul RiverCentre
175 West Kellogg Boulevard
St. Paul, MN 55102

The event is FREE - and a reduced parking rate of only $3.00 is available at the Smith Avenue Transit CenterParking Ramp, located at intersection of Smith & Kellogg.

For more information, including a complete listing of all lenders/servicers that are participating and a list of additional services offered at the event, click here.

Can't make the event today... but are still struggling with mortgage payments? Click here.

HopeNow Event - Partnerships are the key

As frequent readers of this blog know, The Minnesota Home Ownership Center and Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis are joining with two national organizations, HOPE NOW and NeighborWorks America, to bring a large-scale foreclosure prevention workshop to the Twin Cities later this week. The event, which is free and open to the public, will be held on Thursday, June 4th from 2:00 - 8:00 pm at the St. Paul RiverCentre.

This is the first time the Center has partnered with the HopeNow Alliance, the Fed and NeighborWorks America to bring a large-scale foreclosure prevention workshop to the Minneapolis/St. Paul metro area.

The Center believes that MN Homeowners are best served through collaborative efforts like the HopeNow workshop - and the great working relationship our counselors have with local, regional and national lenders/servicers. Our 2008 Foreclosure Counseling report shows that through our collaborative efforts, thousands of Minnesota families where able to avoid foreclosure. To view this report, click here.

Many times lenders are seen as the bad guys - just waiting to get their hands on 'the little guys' home... (Click here for an extreme example) and don't receive enough good press about their efforts for working collaboratively with organizations like the Minnesota Home Ownership Center. The Center applauds all efforts undertaken for the good of Minnesota homeowners! For a complete list of the lenders and servicers that will be attending the event on Thursday... click here.

For more information about the HopeNow Borrower Workshop - including the complete list of additional services that will be available at the workshop, click here.

HopeNow Borrower Workshop - Resource Listing

As we've stated in other blog posts, the Center is proud to participate with the Minneapolis Federal Reserve Bank (Fed), NeighborWorks America & the HopeNow alliance to co-host a foreclosure prevention workshop in St. Paul.

As a reminder, the workshop will be held at the RiverCentre in St. Paul on June 4th.

In addition to the 'standard' resources available at a HopeNow event... where homeowners who are either falling behind, or in danger of falling behind, on the mortgage can speak one-on-one with their servicer or lender - AND - speak with a non-profit housing counselor, the St. Paul event goes one step further.

At the event, while homeowners are waiting to speak with a counselor or their servicer, they will be able to visit a resource fair as well. Resource providers include agencies and organizations that can assist distressed homeowners with repair/rehab issues, energy assistance, taxpayer services, employment assistance, food assistance and many others.

For a complete list of resources, visit the HopeNow Event page of the Center's website here.

The page also lists additional information about the workshop... including a list of non-profit counseling agencies that will be participating. A list of all lenders and servicers will be included as soon as it becomes available.

Hope Now Information Session - Deadline April 8

This is just a reminder that the deadline to register for the information session at the Federal Reserve Bank for the upcoming HOPE NOW Workshop is Wednesday, April 8th, 2009.

The information session will be held on Monday April 13th.

Topics include:

• Additional information about the upcoming HOPE NOW Workshop at the St. Paul RiverCentre on June 4th
• Information about the foreclosure crisis in Minnesota
• Strategies to ensure that the workshop meets the needs of YOUR clients
• Strategies to best reach YOUR clients/constituents

Remember, space is limited and registration is required. If you would like to attend the Informational Meeting on April 13, or would like to request additional information about the meeting, contact:

Jackie Gausvik at (612) 204-5869 or
jacqueline.gausvik@mpls.frb.org by April 8.

Hope Now Workshop - Informational Session

The Minnesota Home Ownership Center is pleased to announce that, in partnership with the Hope Now Initiative and the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, there will be a HOPE NOW BORROWER WORKSHOP held on June 4th at the St. Paul River Centre.

Homeowners will be able to meet with their lenders (we expect more than a dozen national lenders and servicers to attend) talk with foreclosure prevention counselors, and visit a homeownership resource fair.

The workshop will be free and open to the public. We hope to serve more than 1,500 homeowners at the event.

If you are encountering distressed homeowners in your line of work, you are invited to join us at the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis on April 13 to hear more about the Hope Now workshop, underlying foreclosure crisis, and the availability of existing foreclosure intervention services in Minnesota. We will ask for your help in strategizing ways to ensure that the workshop meets the needs of your clients, and how to best reach those clients.

If you have provided assistance to distressed homeowners, your input will be valuable in helping us identify what additional resources to make available at the event.

Space at the April 13th informational session is limited.

For additional information, including how to register for the info session, please view the complete invitation here.