Congresswoman Waters Recognized by NeighborWorks America as a Visionary Leader

Congresswoman Maxine Waters (CA-35) was honored last night by NeighborWorks America at ‘A Celebration of Visionary Leaders', held at the Federal Reserve Bank in Los Angeles.

Congresswoman Waters, who chairs the Financial Services Subcommittee on Housing and Community Opportunity, has long been a champion of affordable housing and homeownership, community revitalization and economic opportunity for all Americans.

As a key member of the House-Senate conference committee that negotiated the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, Congresswoman Waters secured significant assistance for unemployed homeowners and communities suffering from foreclosures.   The bill contains a provision the Congresswoman authored to provide $1 billion in low-interest loans to help unemployed homeowners stay in their homes. This funding is in addition to $2 billion that the Treasury Department is providing—at the Congresswoman's insistence—to 17 states through its ‘Hardest Hit Fund'.

Congresswoman Waters also secured an additional $1 billion for the Neighborhood Stabilization Program (NSP), which provides grants to states and localities to buy and rehabilitate abandoned and foreclosed properties. NSP, which the Congresswoman created, has already received $6 billion in funding.

During her speech thanking NeighborWorks America for this honor, Congresswoman Waters said, "Because of my efforts, and the efforts of advocates such as yourselves, we have additional resources to deal with this foreclosure crisis – but not nearly enough given the scale of the problem. California alone is at the epicenter of this crisis: of the total nationwide foreclosure activity that took place July, 21 percent occurred in our state alone."

The Congresswoman continued, "Though the Administration's Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP) was well-intentioned, the number of families being offered modifications has decreased 86 percent since last year. In addition, about half of the homeowners who enter the program have been kicked out. These results have made it clear to me that we need a better solution to this crisis that involves empowering homeowners by requiring servicers to provide loan modifications. I have introduced legislation – HR 3451, the Foreclosure Prevention and Sound Mortgage Servicing Act of 2009 – to do just that."

Lori Gay of Neighborhood Housing Services of Los Angeles was also recognized by NeighborWorks of America.

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