Paul Bass Photo
Alejandra Ortiz won’t lose her house after all. A new batch of foreclosed-upon city homeowners have a chance to get the same help.
A pack of politicians visited Ortiz at her Fair Haven home Wednesday to celebrate the fact that she can live there. And they wanted to let the growing number of homeowners in similar straits know that they can find similar help, thereby adding a happy ending to an all-too-common sad story during this foreclosure crisis.
Webster Bank foreclosed earlier this year on the one-family home at 96 Woolsey St. where Ortiz has lived with her husband William Ramirez for the past ten years. They were more than a year behind on the mortgage.
They were one of 169 families whose houses were foreclosed upon in the first five months of this year — equal to the number foreclosed upon in all of 2007 — according to Mayor John DeStefano.
Ortiz said she and her husband fell behind because of a double-whammy: Their roof started leaking and needed repair and her husband’s hours were cut at the warehouse where he works as a laborer. He had been making $30,000 a year counting overtime, enough to cover the $502 monthly mortgage. Now they couldn’t afford to pay the mortgage and the $4,000 roof repair bill.
“It was very bad. The water was pouring through,” Ortiz recalled. She and her husband decided to repair the roof. They didn’t have money left to pay the mortgage, which is what led Webster Bank to finally foreclose on them.
Under a state program, the bank had to go through court mediation and inform Ortiz of people around who could help her before it could take her house. (Although the house is technically in her husband’s name, Ortiz ended up dealing with the lender and helping agencies because Ramirez doesn’t speak English.)
Webster Bank’s attorney told Ortiz about people at Neighborhood Housing Services who help people facing foreclosure. NHS led her to Earl Randall (pictured with her in the above photo), residential loan programming director and housing counselor at the Greater New Haven Community Loan Fund. Randall and the bank worked out a deal: Ortiz and Ramirez would pay back $3,500 up front, as well as yet-to-be finalized court costs. And the foreclosure would be off. The family also agreed to pay back $3,500 to the federal government — borrowed to help them through an earlier accumulated mortgage debt — if and when they ever sell the house.
In the meantime, work had picked up at Ramirez’s warehouse. Ortiz produced the money this month and now can rest easy about her home.
“This was a wonderful story,” Randall said at Wednesday’s event outside Ortiz’s house. “Ms. Ortiz was diligent. She was persistent. She showed up at mediation sessions. She was forthcoming [with the money agreed upon]. She did everything she was supposed to do. She understood they had a responsibility to pay their mortgage.”
New Haven State Sens. Martin Looney and Toni Harp (pictured at the event) celebrated their success in getting $3.5 million restored in the state budget this past session to renew the mandatory mediation program for a second year, so that other families can be helped. The mandatory mediation sessions give families a chance to meet face to face with the lenders who have often bought their mortgages from the original banks that issued them. The sessions help both sides avoid costly foreclosures that leave lenders holding properties they don’t want and leave neighborhoods facing potential blight, and, as Looney noted, returns some accountability to the process.
“If you’re going to have a safe and stable community,” Harp said, the city needs “safe and stable” homeowners.
“We can’t solve every problem. We can’t stop every foreclosure,” said Mayor DeStefano. “Every one we do is a good thing.”
Looney’s office released statistics showing that as of April, 6,413 cases had finished the mediation process statewide in the program’s first year. Some 60 percent of the debtors ended up staying in their homes; another 15 percent moved but often obtained some relief. The cases of the other 25 percent hadn’t been settled yet.
About 44 percent of the total cases ended up with some form of loan modification.
After Ortiz spoke at the event, DeStefano had a question for her, highlighting the value that homeowners bring to a community.
“Do you keep your eye on Woolsey Street?” he asked.
“Yes,” she responded. “We do.”
