Profitwise News and Views

May 2004 Issue
Special Edition

• Neighborhood Housing Services of Chicago Home Ownership Preservation Initiative


• Remarks by Michael H. Moskow, President and CEO, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago


• Remarks by Richard M. Daley, Mayor, City of Chicago


• Alicia Williams, Vice President, Consumer and Community Affairs, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago


• John G. Markowski, Commissioner, City of Chicago, Department of Housing


• Bruce Gottschall, Executive Director, Neighborhood Housing Services of Chicago


• Bruce Paradis, President and Chief Executive Officer, GMAC-RFC


• Steve Paton, Vice President, Chase Manhattan Mortgage Corporation


• Richard Monocchio, First Deputy Commissioner, City of Chicago, Department of Housing


• Conclusion


• Neighborhood Housing Services Programs


• May 2004 Issue, Special Edition (PDF,209KB)

Neighborhood Housing Services of Chicago Home Ownership Preservation Initiative

On Wednesday, September 3, 2003, the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago hosted a breakfast meeting at which Neighborhood Housing Services (NHS) of Chicago made a presentation on the progress of HOPI, the Home Ownership Preservation Initiative. HOPI, officially launched in April of 2003, is a partnership between the City of Chicago, NHS and key financial institutions who conduct business in Chicago, including General Motors Acceptance Corporation-Residential Funding Corporation (GMAC-RFC), Chase Manhattan Mortgage Corp., Bank One Corp., LaSalle Bank, Harris Trust and Savings Bank, Bank of America Corp., and Washington Mutual, Inc.

The partnership established two goals at inception:

• Prevent foreclosures in targeted neighborhoods through various means
• Reclaim foreclosed properties and return them to vital use as neighborhood assets.

For the first goal, the numeric target is to prevent 500 foreclosures per year through loss mitigation, including loan workouts, refinancing and small loans to help homeowners remain current on mortgage payments. For the second, in collaboration with (primary and secondary market) mortgage finance partners, NHS plans on acquiring 100 foreclosed single-family homes per year over three years in targeted neighborhoods. NHS will rehab these homes, making them safe and habitable, to prepare them for sale to income qualified families. The overriding goal is to prevent neighborhoods from losing market value as a result of the inevitable conditions that arise from excessive vacancies, and create more stable neighborhoods in the city's lower- and moderate-income communities.

Alicia Williams, vice president of Consumer and Community Affairs for the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, opened the meeting. Michael H. Moskow, president and CEO of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, provided the Chicago Fed's perspective on the problem and touched on NHS's tireless and creative efforts to address it. Mayor Richard M. Daley discussed the city's leadership in addressing foreclosures and offered support and encouragement for the initiative. The full texts of the remarks follow in this issue.

John G. Markowski, commissioner, City of Chicago, Department of Housing (DOH), Bruce A. Gottschall, executive director, NHS of Chicago, Bruce Paradis, president and CEO, GMAC-RFC, and Steve Paton, vice president, Chase Manhattan Mortgage Corporation, provided progress on the initiative from their respective viewpoints. Summing up the meeting and the next steps for HOPI was Richard Monocchio, first deputy commissioner at DOH.