White Paper In Support of The Home Mortgage Bridge Loan Assistance Act of 2012

This White Paper provides background information and explanation in support of passage of the statute that we have drafted -- the Home Mortgage Bridge Loan Assistance Act of 2012 -- by the legislature of New York. Many homeowners now faced with the threat of foreclosure are only temporarily in distress owing to transitory income loss rooted in temporary unemployment or underemployment. In consequence many foreclosures, along with their many harmful effects upon home prices as well as neighborhoods and families, can be avoided at very low cost through bridge loan assistance programs. Pennsylvania's highly successful HEMAP program, instituted in the early 1980s, is a conspicuous case in point. Our draft statute aims to replicate the benefits of HEMAP while also incorporating lessons learned in the several decades since HEMAP's implementation.