ASSEMBLY PANEL ADVANCES WATSON COLEMAN BILL TO MAKE HOUSING ASSISTANCE EFFECTIVE IMMEDIATELY

(TRENTON) – Legislation sponsored by Assembly Majority Leader Bonnie Watson Coleman to make a new housing assistance and recovery program effective immediately was released today by an Assembly committee.

The program was to become effective in April, but Watson Coleman (D-Mercer) said the new legislation (A-3711) makes it immediate so it can more quickly help homeowners.

“New Jersey’s deepening mortgage crisis makes it imperative that we immediately provide direct assistance to ensure families can stay in their homes and out of foreclosure,” Watson Coleman said. “We need to work faster to implement this program we already know can preserve the dream of homeownership for many families.”

Member of Banking Committee says mortgage modification plan and lending guidelines for capital infusions are insufficient

President Bush will visit New Jersey today, speaking in Freehold to tout a new mortgage hotline.  But U.S. Sen. Robert Menendez says Bush should have joined him a year ago when he began sounding “alarm bells on the housing crisis.”

“For more than a year, this tsunami of foreclosures has washed away the American dream for millions. The president has bent over backward to stabilize Wall Street, but he has never exerted much effort on helping the homeowners on Main Street,” said Menendez, a member of the Senate Banking Committee. “Homeowners across the country are drowning in out-of-control mortgage payments. The president must finally realize that their dire situation not only threatens to take away the American Dream from millions, it also has a direct effect on property values, on the credit crisis and on our entire slumping economy.