New Haven Independent

The plans were revealed at a press conference Thursday afternoon by ROOF, Real Options, Overcoming Foreclosures.

ROOF formed last year to combat the city’s foreclosure crisis. The number of foreclosures has risen more than 700 percent in the past two years. To get on top of the crisis and prevent further foreclosures, organizers from City Hall, Yale Law School’s clinic, the Greater New Haven Community Loan Fund and Neighborhood Housing Services (NHS) put together ROOF to collect data, identify homeowners at risk of foreclosure, and help them renegotiate terms of often predatory loans.

At Thursday’s press conference on Division Street, ROOFers reported that 37 people have been approaching them for help each month. They’ve helped 80 percent of people stay in their homes, 53 percent of them through convincing lenders to rewrite terms.

Exhibit A was Willie Brown (pictured at the top of the story). The retired Union Trust maintenance supervisor (“I was the man who kept the boiler running”) fell dangerously behind on a $1,600 refinanced mortgage on his West Hazel Street home after his wife died. He sought help from ROOF.

He ended up working with NHS’s Bridgette Russell (at left in photo), who has emerged as New Haven’s superstar lender-wrestler in saving families’ homes. Brown (pictured at the top of this story) thought he’d lose his home and return home to his native North Carolina. Instead, he got a few hundred dollars a month shaved off the mortgage, and he’s getting by.

In the year ahead ROOF organizers plan to ramp up outreach to homeowners like Brown. And with the help of an anticipated $3.2 million federal grant, they plan to acquire endangered properties themselves to get them out of the hands of distant, neglectful owners, fix them up, and resell them to new homeowners. That approach has helped stabilize endangered stretches of Flint, Michigan.

ROOF plans as well to try to make more direct contact with representatives of out-of-state lenders filing foreclosure suits in town. Outfits like Germany-based Deutsche Bank, which filed more than 60 foreclosure suits in New Haven last year.

The Elephant In The Room

However, ROOF presented no plans to tackle an equally major player in the foreclosure crisis that fills the housing court docket with suits not from Germany, but right here in town: the WPCA, New Haven’s regional sewer authority.

The WPCA has been far more aggressive than other institutions (like the water authority and local hospitals) in filing foreclosure suits over debts from customers.

Just since January 2008, the WPCA has filed 120 foreclosure suits in the region — 90 to 95 of them in the city of New Haven, according to Lawrence C. Sgrignari, an attorney working on the issue for the agency. (The rest were in East Haven and Hamden.)

That’s almost 10 percent of all foreclosure suits that have been filed in New Haven the past year.

And it brings the number of WPCA foreclosures filed in the region to 250 since City Hall, in search of short-term cash, spun the WPCA off into an independent authority in mid-2005. Over 200 of those have been within New Haven city limits.

The agency has been filing more suits in New Haven than in surrounding towns, sometimes for debts that begin as low as $793. Those debts quickly multiply beyond homeowners’ ability to pay as WPCA-hired lawyers aggressively rack up court fees and interest costs balloon.

ROOF officials were asked why they have not addressed the WPCA’s practices. They offered conflicting responses.

Program Manager Eva Heintzelman (pictured at the top of the story with Willie Brown) replied that the sewer agency doesn’t follow through on its foreclosure suits to actually take away homes.

That turns out to be false. The WPCA had two foreclosure auctions last Saturday, one of which went through. The other was delayed.

Even if it were true, the line of reasoning goes against what ROOF officials said at the same press conference Thursday. They said they want to focus on foreclosure lawsuits when they’re filed, before the fees and interest pile up and homes are abandoned. The number of foreclosure suits filed in New Haven rose from 547 in 2006 to 853 in 2007 and around 950 in 2008, according to Heintzelman.

Mayor John DeStefano (pictured with Bridgette Russell) offered a different explanation for the absence of action on the WPCA.

“It’s a good point. We haven’t thought to do it,” he said.

However, DeStefano and ROOF officials have been asked about the WPCA repeatedly over the past year.

The Board of Aldermen held a hearing into the issue, too. Some aldermen expressed concern over the aggressive tactics, suggesting they might even be illegal. Other aldermen sympathized with WPCA officials’ argument that they need to act to protect the rates of the majority of customers who pay their bills.

Mediate It

ROOF organizer Sameera Fazili said the group wants to highlight a new option that not enough struggling homeowners are taking advantage of in New Haven: a state foreclosure mediation program.

Any homeowner served with a court summons in a foreclosure suit has 15 days to request a mediation session. Then a mediation session takes place at the state courthouse on Church Street. A representative of the lender is required to participate in the meeting, at least by phone. Fazili said homeowners in other parts of the state have been taking more advantage of this option.

Find out more about that mediation program here and here. Find out more about ROOF here.

Previous Independent coverage of New Haven’s foreclosure crisis:

• Sewer Agency Unloads House
• Foreclosure Evictions Halted
• Hazel St. Sale Reflects Economic Climate
• Hill Foreclosure Triggers Memories, & Prayers
• Foreclosure Fee-Slashing Judge Leaves Town
• She’ll Be Watching Deutsche Bank
• A Last Pre-Foreclosure Look At A Lifetime Past
• New Yorker Snags Foreclosed-Upon Gem
• Foreclosure Dream Goes Sour
• Judge Slashes Foreclosure Bounty
• Tax Break Saves Woman’s House
• Bank Replaces “Gunshot Alley” Landlord
• Foreclosure Bill OK’d
• Singh Seeks Home For A Song
• Foreclosure’s Neighbor Worries More About Speeding
• Networking Replaces Foreclosure at Christy’s
• Foreclosure Bargain — & Renewal — Jeopardized
• Bank Outbids Akbar; Family May Keep Home
• “So Don’t Worry About Pablo”
• Bankruptcy Postpones Foreclosure
• Next-Door Foreclosures, 53 Years Apart
• They Met On Foreclosure Way
• Little Garage Draws Big Bids
• A 2nd Chance on Lewis Street
• Foreclosure Attracts New Breed of “Specialist”
• In Foreclosures, Judge’s Hands Tied
• Home Saved From Foreclosure. Cycle, Too
• A House For Precious?
• Deutsche Bank Grabs Dixwell Condo
• Reluctant Bidder Snags F. Haven Bargain
• Well, There’s Always Powerball
• Neighbors Retrieve Home From Bank
• Somebody Has Plans For Bassett Street
• Foreclosed, the Khennavongs Leave the Santanas
• Foreclosure Steal May Be Too Good
• 2nd Foreclosure in 3 Months Dims Bright St.
• After Foreclosure, W’ville Owner Still Hopes To Sell
• He’s Not Buying, Yet
• Quiet Foreclosure on Porter Street
• 3 Minutes Too Late
• Historic Gambardella Property Foreclosed
•2 Homes Lost, 1 Gained
• “Everybody’s Got To Eat”
• More Foreclosures, More Signs
• Foreclosure Sale Benefits Archie Moore’s
• Rescue Squad Swings Into Action
• A Bidder Shows Up
• Bank Beats Tanya’s Bid
• Westville Auction Draws A Crowd
• DeStefano: Foreclosure Plan Ready
• Can They Help?
• “We Should Over-Regulate These Bastards”
• Rosa Hears of Rescues
• WPCA Grilled on Foreclosures
• WPCA’s Targets Struggle To Dig Out
• Sue The Subprimers?
• WPCA Hearing Delayed
• Megna’s “Blood Boils” at WPCA Tactics
• Goldfield Wants WPCA Answers
• 2 Days, 8 Foreclosure Suits
• WPCA Goes On Foreclosure Binge
• A Guru Weighs In
• WPCA Targets Church
• Subprime Mess Targeted
• Renters Caught In Foreclosure King’s Fall
• She’s One Of 1,150 In The Foreclosure Mill
• Foreclosures Threaten Perrotti’s Empire
•“I’m Not Going To Lay Down And Let Them Take My House”
• Struggling Couple Sues Over “Scam”

To learn about the ROOF Project, a community-wide effort to help New Haveners navigate the foreclosure crisis, click here.

The following links are to various materials and brochures designed to help homeowners avoid foreclosure.

How to prepare a complaint to the Department of Banking; Department of Banking Online Assistance Form; Connecticut Department of Banking, Avoiding Foreclosure; FDIC Consumer News; Statewide Legal Services of Connecticut, Inc; Connecticut Bar Association Lawyer Referral Service.

For lawyer referral services in New Haven, call 562-5750 or visit this website. For the Department of Social Services (DSS) Eviction Foreclosure Prevention Program (EFPP), call 211 to see which community-based organization in the state serves your town.

Click here for information on foreclosure prevention efforts from Empower New Haven.