Federal Mortgage Plan Not Helping the Neediest: Critics

A plan to federally subsidize the refinancing of troubled mortgages has in fact helped relatively few of the most at-risk borrowers, the New York Times reports. Though Bush administration officials said FHA Secure has benefited 150,000, federal statistics show that only 1,729 of those mortgages were delinquent. “They came to us before they got into trouble,” one official said.

But some say the program is not providing the acute aid it promised: The Federal Housing Administration "is helping borrowers who aren’t currently in trouble and that is fine,” said one lender. “But there is a specific subset of borrowers right now who are in trouble. The program needs to be helping people who need the help immediately.” (More Federal Housing Administration stories.)