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TIME Magazine – All told, some 6.5 million families will lose their homes to foreclosure in the next few years, according to the projections of financial firm Credit Suisse.
Even so, the troubled U.S. homeowner is not among the priorities of those in Washington who are dishing out rescue funds. The Treasury Department plans to spend $250 billion of the $700 billion rescue package approved by Congress earlier this month on capitalizing banks. To the back burner went Treasury’s original plan to buy up distressed mortgage bonds, and along with it the idea that such purchases could be used to pressure banks into giving better loan deals to homeowners facing foreclosure.
“We are all for a strong financial system,” says Ellen Schloemer, director of research at the Center for Responsible Lending. “But borrowers need to be helped too, and they have in large measure been left out of the rescue effort.”
