Housing-aid program begins slowly start

WASHINGTON (AP) — Speaking at a high school in Mesa, Ariz., about a month after taking office, President Barack Obama launched an effort to keep as many as 9 million homeowners out of foreclosure in a major federal effort to stabilize the U.S. housing market.

So what kind of impact has this plan — backed by $50 billion from the financial industry bailout fund — had on the housing crisis over the past few months?

While outside analysts expect the program to ultimately make a difference, it’s been slow to get up and running. And the impact of the plan is likely to be less significant than the Obama administration’s original projections of up to 4 million loan modifications and 5 million refinanced loans.

In an effort to get things moving, the government has summoned mortgage executives from 25 companies to meetings today with top staffers from the departments of Treasury and Housing and Urban Development. Six other companies weren’t invited because they just joined the program this month.

Meanwhile, government officials, lawmakers and activist groups are urging the participating companies to ramp up their efforts.

“Much more progress is needed,” Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and Housing and Urban Development Secretary Shaun Donovan said in a July 10 letter to the industry, arguing that participating companies should “devote substantially more resources to this program.”

So far, more than 55,000 borrowers have received refinanced loans and at least 200,000 were enrolled in three-month trial loan modifications, out of about 370,000 who were offered modifications by mortgage companies.