MAY 2017
KeepYour HomeCalifornia | Newsletter

Homeowners Can Now Upload Documents When Applying to Keep Your Home California

Collect, convert (if necessary) and click "upload."

It's now that easy to submit documents for your Keep Your Home California application.

Keep Your Home California recently established a document upload system, providing homeowners with the ability to send the necessary paperwork, such as bank statements and mortgage documents, through a secure website.

It's a big change for the free mortgage-assistance program, which has accepted documents from homeowners by fax or mail since starting in February 2011.

Under the new document upload service, homeowners can send in PDF documents on a secure website. In fact, each applicant will have a unique website address. Data security is of the utmost importance to Keep Your Home California and this new system provides a secure, yet user-friendly option for homeowners to return necessary paperwork.


New Video Testimonial   

We are excited to add a new Video Testimonial to the six unique stories we already had from real homeowners who have received assistance from Keep Your Home California. The latest addition profiles Charles and Kathleen, a retired couple whose mortgage became unaffordable when they had unexpected medical expenses. They received assistance from the Principal Reduction Program in order to make their monthly payments more affordable and were able to remain in their home.

Like the other homeowners featured in the video testimonials, Charles and Kathleen's video will appear as a television advertisement in English and Spanish across the state. You can read their full story, as well as many other stories of homeowners who received assistance from Keep Your Home California, on our Success Stories webpage. 

Funding
(as of May 29, 2017)

Programs
  
Homeowners Assisted
Total Amount Distributed
Unemployment Mortgage Assistance
47,370     
$826,583,195.71
Principal Reduction Program
11,174      
$684,808,319.47
Mortgage Reinstatement Assistance Program
12,769     
$193,059,100.49
Reverse Mortgage Assistance Pilot Program
629
$8,055,716.55
Transition Assistance Program
1,025     
$3,646,994.94
Total Program
Funds Allocated
72,967     
$1,716,153,327.16
Partner Agency Achievements for 2016    

Recently, Keep Your Home California held four regional meetings with all of our partner HUD approved housing counseling agencies. The meetings took place in Los Angeles, Riverside, Concord, and Fresno where agencies from the surrounding areas came together to discuss recent developments with the program.

At these meetings, agencies who had achieved outstanding performance metrics in 2016 were presented with certificates in recognition for their hard work. The following is a complete list of the agencies that were honored:

100% of Clients Returned Documents
For working closely with homeowners, resulting in 100% of their clients who applied for Keep Your Home California returning required documentation.
Partner agency certificate recipients at the Los Angeles meeting.
100% of Clients Received a Homeowner Action Plan
For their outstanding counseling efforts to ensure 100% of their clients who applied for Keep Your Home California received a Homeowner Action Plan.
Partner agency certificate recipients at the Concord meeting.
Submission Superstar
For being a "Submission Superstar" by helping 810 homeowners apply for Keep Your Home California; the most clients submitted from any partner agency in 2016. Submission Star
For being a "Submission Star" by helping hundreds of homeowners apply for Keep Your Home California in 2016.
Partner agency certificate recipients at the Riverside meeting.
Most Efficient Agency
For achieving the highest efficiency ratio for any Keep Your Home California partner agency in 2016. 100% Attendance
For having 100% attendance at all Keep Your Home California partner agency meetings, webinars, and conference calls in 2016.
Partner agency certificate recipients at the Fresno meeting.
Recent Blog Post:

More than 10,000 homeowners helped in 2016
Keep Your Home California recently closed the books on another strong and successful year, assisting more than 10,000 homeowners from Calexico to Crescent City - and just about every community in between.

The federally funded program has become much-appreciated by homeowners, helping them through difficult and stressful chapters of their lives. Many homeowners dealing with hardships - such as a job loss, pay cut, a divorce, a death in the family or even extraordinary medical bills - are helped by the free mortgage-assistance program.

"The support is a big financial relief," says homeowner Vinh L., who benefited from the Principal  Reduction Program through Keep Your Home California that saves his family almost $400 per month. "We were in huge financial distress."

And that's the mission of Keep Your Home California, which has issued more than twice as much funding to homeowners than any other state in the Hardest Hit Fund program.

Read More
Success Story: Sally S.
"I've fallen through the cracks"

If video indeed killed the radio star, then Amazon and big-box outlets did the same to national retail-store chains.

"I lost my industry," says Sally S., a homeowner in Southern California. "We've lost our retailers."

With fewer folks shopping in department stores, finding a job has been tough for Sally, a former sales merchandiser, manager and sales vendor representative for several companies and suppliers in the retail industry.

"I've been struggling for a very long time; every day is a challenge," she says. "You lose your job, your medical, your 401(k) is stolen ... It's been an avalanche of things."

Read More
Monthly Question & Answer
Q: If signed and notarized Promissory Note and Deed of Trust are not returned, will benefits be cancelled?
A: Yes. For all Keep Your Home California programs, except the Transition Assistance Program, the homeowner must sign, notarize and return the CalHFA MAC Promissory Note and Deed of Trust to be found eligible for assistance. Homeowners who do not return the CalHFA MAC Promissory Note and Deed of Trust will be found ineligible for benefits.
  
Water Saving Tips

Review your water bill monthly to check for unusually high use. Check water meters at night or on the weekend to detect leaks. There should be no flow when all water using fixtures have been turned off.

For more tips on what you can do to save water, please visit the Save Our Water website.
To see all Servicer Scorecards, please visit the Participating Servicers webpage.
June 1, 2017
2:00pm - 6:00pm
6th Annual Health 2 Wealth Expo
Chino, CA
June 3, 2017
11:00am - 2:30pm
2017 San Francisco Housing Expo
San Francisco, CA
June 10, 2017
8:30am - 5:30pm
Homebuyer Education Workshop
Ventura, CA
June 10, 2017
8:30am - 4:30pm
Homebuyer Education Workshop
Oxnard, CA
June 16, 2017
10:00am - 12:00pm
CA Financial Literacy Month Resource Fair
Sacramento, CA
June 17, 2017
10:00am - 2:00pm
5th Annual Hometown Heroes BBQ & Resource Fair
Elk Grove, CA
June 17, 2017
8:00am - 4:30pm
Homebuyer Education Workshop
Los Angeles, CA
June 21, 2017
6:00pm - 7:30pm
Home Retention Clinic
Los Angeles, CA
June 24, 2017
9:00am - 2:00pm
Educational Seminar for Families with Reverse Mortgages
Reseda, CA
June 24, 2017
10:30am - 1:30pm
27th Annual Homeownership Fair
Los Angeles, CA
June 24, 2017
11:00am - 3:00pm
5th Annual Homeownership Fair
Oxnard, CA



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www.KeepYourHomeCalifornia.org - 888.954.KEEP(5337)