The Pennsylvania Housing Finance Agency, PHFA, has taken over the administration of the state’s $350 million pandemic mortgage relief program from Innovative Emergency Management, the private-sector vendor it had hired to run it.
Prior to the takeover, which took effect last week, PHFA put a pause on the program, known as the Pa. Homeowners Assistance Fund. As of Feb. 1, new applications must wait until previous applicants have been processed, and relief for those determined to be eligible has been awarded.
The Homeowners Assistance Fund provides mortgage aid to low- and middle-income homeowners who can demonstrate financial losses due to the Covid-19 pandemic. It is a counterpart to the Emergency Rental Assistance Program, or ERAP, which serves renter households. Both are funded with federal dollars.
Scott Elliott, the PHFA’s spokesman, said the mortgage assistance program has helped around 9,000 homeowners to date statewide, and allocated around $90 million of the $350 million in available funding.
The backlog, he said, involves around 18,000 pending applications.
He could not immediately provide figures for Lancaster County, saying the program is in the middle of a transition to a new recordkeeping system.
Elliott said PHFA initially went with Innovative Emergency Management due to the mortgage program’s scale.
“This is a very large program,” he said. “Our concern was that we wouldn’t be able to ramp up our staff fast enough.”
In explaining why the program has been paused, Elliott said that there was a concern about having enough money to fund the eligible pending applications. It’s important not to give people “false hope” about mortgage relief, he said.
“We need some time … to make sure there is enough funding,” he said. “We have to balance what we do … (and work with) all deliberate speed … making sure that people qualify.”
When a household submits an application, it will be reviewed and processed by a caseworker. PHFA has to verify the amount owed on the mortgage, which he said can be a bottleneck.
Dealing with the mortgage servicers themselves, Elliott said, can involve some frustration and a lot of emails back and forth.
According to Spotlight PA, PHFA’s contract with Innovative Emergency Management’s was a five-year agreement for $27.5 million. In an investigation published last month, the news organization reported that thousands of applicants were awaiting their determination of eligibility, with an average wait time of six months.
When the program started, PHFA partnered with designated agencies in each county that could assist homeowners with their applications. Tenfold is one of two based in Lancaster County.
Tenfold was notified of the moratorium on new applications, and is waiting to hear when they will resume, Director of Financial Empowerment Randi Shober said. It hasn’t really seen any other change, she said, because it’s not involved in processing applications.
Elliot said PHFA is believes that new software from Neighborly, a company based in Atlanta, will provide more transparent information and automate data collection. It is a “cloud-based turnkey solution” and is used in administration of the ERAP program in various county and state offices nationwide.
PHFA says it has assigned about 30 staff members to the mortgage assistance program and has bolstered its call center operations.
