Hundreds of people wait in line to receive free financial counceling
© AFP Nicholas Kamm WASHINGTON(AFP) - "They cut my rate from eight percent to three percent!" a towering African-American woman with short-cropped, bleached hair cried gleefully outside the hotel just steps away from the White House.
Inside, the Neighborhood Assistance Corporation of America (NACA), a 20-year-old non-profit founded by Bostonian Bruce Marks, was doling out hope to working class Americans desperate to save their homes.
The tall black woman had begun queuing for her chance of home salvation at 5:00 am -- around 10 hours before the House of Representatives was due to vote on an ambitious rescue package for the beleaguered US housing sector.
"I was given number 200. There were people who got here at 2:00 am," said the woman, who asked not to be named.
"We've come because the people who organized this help everyone who is trapped by predatory lenders. They don't turn anyone away," she said.
Hundreds of people wait in line to receive free financial counseling
© AFP Nicholas KammInitially, NACA worked to get Americans with limited resources -- again often minorities -- onto the homeownership ladder.
Today, it has pledges worth 10 billion dollars from big US banks, primarily Bank of America and Citigroup, which allow the non-profit to put together loans that help tens of thousands of less-than-affluent Americans buy a home or keep one they are in danger of losing.
As holders of sub-prime, or high-risk, mortgages defaulted in droves, NACA persuaded Countrywide Financial, one of the biggest US mortgage lenders, to let it restructure bad loans, based on what the borrower could afford.
In Washington, those lucky enough to get inside the hotel to see a NACA cousellor "go through orientation and we tell them about the mortgage industry and what caused this epidemic," Dolores Respess, one of hundreds of volunteers who were shepherding the waiting homeowners, told AFP.
After the orientation session, NACA scans the homeowners' documents before taking them to a counsellor who determines what they can afford, Respess said.
Hundreds of people wait in line to receive free financial counseling
© AFP Nicholas Kamm"Then we set a solution... a lot of people have seen their percentage cut from 12 percent to three percent," Respess said.
The solution is submitted to the lender, many of whom have responded positively to the NACA proposals within 24-48 hours.
"We had one lender this week agree to two percent for a loan," NACA spokesman Dante Duarte said.
"Sometimes, though, they don't agree. So what we do is offer to talk. This week, because we're in Washington, we got senators to contact the CEOs of reticent lenders," Duarte said.
Ten-thousand people hoping to save their homes attended the workshops here.
At one point Wednesday, NACA volunteers announced over megaphones, in English and Spanish, that no one else would be allowed inside the hotel.
Faces in the crowd fell.
But NACA wasn't shutting the door.
The hundreds of still waiting, harried homeowners were redirected to a nearby church for counselling and a NACA "solution" to their prayers for an end to their mortgage woes.
©AFP