A watchdog panel overseeing the financial bailouts says the Obama administration's flagship mortgage aid program lags well behind the foreclosure crisis and leaves too many families out. The Congressional Oversight Panel says in a report released Wednesday that the administration projects only one million families will end up with lower monthly payments as a result of the program. The report says six million families are more than two months behind with their payments, and 200,000 more families receive foreclosure notices each month.
A year and a half after launching the program, "Treasury is still fighting to get its foreclosure programs off the ground," Elizabeth Warren, who heads the independent panel set up by Congress, told reporters Tuesday.
Warren warned that borrowers who have their monthly payments lowered as a result of the program still could lose their homes because the payments remain high and many Americans are facing new financial strains.
"Redefault signals the single worst form of failure" by the Treasury Department, said Warren, who is a professor at Harvard Law School. "Billions of taxpayer dollars will be spent and families will nonetheless lose their homes."
