Foreclosed homeowners find help in DuPage courtroom

With residential real estate foreclosures increasing across the suburbs, officials in DuPage County are turning to a new pilot program to help families navigate complex court proceedings — and possibly save their homes.

The effort in Judge Robert Gibson's courtroom matches struggling homeowners with counselors from the DuPage Homeownership Center. The nonprofit group educates the homeowners about their options and can help them seek loan modifications to avoid foreclosure.

Gibson said the pilot program launched in December after officials recognized several disturbing trends developing in foreclosure court, as more families struggled to keep up with their bills. Among the concerns were rampant reports of largely Hispanic homeowners losing money to Internet scam artists who falsely promised to save their homes.

“It's just pure evil,” Gibson said. “You've got people out there whose business model is, ‘I'm going to target through bogus ads people who don't speak English very well and are getting foreclosed upon and losing their homes, and I'm going to steal the money they do have.' Now, we're getting fewer of those. People are starting to get educated.”

Home foreclosures in DuPage County soared nearly 20 percent from 2009 to 2010, according to data compiled by the Woodstock Institute, a Chicago-based research and policy group. Similar increases occurred in the counties of Kane, 19 percent; Lake, 15 percent; McHenry, 33 percent; and Cook, 10 percent.

DuPage County Judge Bonnie Wheaton, who heads the chancery division where foreclosures are heard, said the spike led to an effort by the county board, judiciary, Prairie State Legal Services and local attorneys, who agreed homeowners might benefit from having an advocate in the courtroom.

“I've been a judge for 23 years, and foreclosures were just a very minor part of any judge's court call until about 2008,” she said. “And then all of a sudden we realized this was threatening to take over the entire call. One of the main problems is there are so many people who don't respond to really any communication, from the lender to a summons. People are just overwhelmed and don't know their options.”

As of mid-March, about 150 families have sought help from the DuPage Homeownership Center through the pilot program, which is expected to continue through the end of April, said Lynette Briggs, acting executive director of the group.

She said involvement with the center typically begins with literature on the foreclosure process, followed by a workshop where homeowners can get more detailed information. Eligible participants then go on to receive individual counseling, where they might seek loan modifications, do budgeting, or discuss short sales and refinancing, among other strategies.

She said the organization also has bilingual staffers who can help non-English-speaking homeowners make better sense of what's happening in the courtroom.

“Most people need help with the paperwork and just understanding what their options are,” Briggs said. “A lot of people have a natural tendency to appear like Bambi in headlights when it comes to numbers. We can tell them what their options are, but they have to make the decisions.”

Gibson, who was appointed to the bench in July, said the program highlights a changing landscape for homeowners and lenders, as the nation struggles to keep foreclosures from becoming a more widespread problem.

“We've come to the point where there's been so many (home foreclosures) that the banks don't want the homes,” he said. “So they really prefer the homeowner work on a modification plan and keep the homeowner in the home. If they've got a big inventory and they flood the market with more foreclosures, the housing market deteriorates further.”

“The interesting thing,” he added, “is the foreclosure attorneys like it. In some sense everyone has a similar interest.”

Attorney R. Elliot Halsey, who represents banks and lenders at Pierce and Associates in Chicago, said he's noticed homeowners coming to court “more relieved and less anxious” instead of overwhelmed, which he attributes to the program.

“I welcome it because it provides the resources the defendants need right there in court and steers them to HUD-approved counselors as opposed to the questionable services out there, as opposed to fumbling through it on their own,” Halsey said.

DuPage County Board Member Debra Olson, who helped secure financing for the program, said it would be difficult to determine the program's success after five months because foreclosure cases often take more than a year to resolve. Still, she said, officials hope surveys and other feedback from participants will help them decide whether it's worth continuing.

“Just getting information into people's hands about the services out there is helpful,” she said. “The goal is to work together more effectively to stem the tide of residential foreclosures. It doesn't help communities to have homes sitting there vacant; it doesn't help families to have nowhere to go; and it doesn't help the banks because they get stuck with all these properties they don't want.”

The homeownership center is certified by the Department of Housing and Urban Development. For more information, call (630) 260-2500 or visit dhoc.org.