September 2022 Quarterly HAF Data Demonstrate Increased Reach to Homeowners (February 10, 2023)

Summary

A U.S. Department of the Treasury release dated February 10, 2023, titled "September 2022 Quarterly HAF Data Demonstrate Increased Reach to Homeowners," on the American Rescue Plan-funded Homeowner Assistance Fund (HAF). It states that as of September 30, HAF programs had assisted over 162,000 homeowners, a 138% increase from June 2022. It describes outreach by the HAF programs of California, Michigan and Nevada, including a 300% increase in households assisted in Nevada from July through September 2022. Reported data show 57% of assistance went to very low-income homeowners, and HAF participants have until September 30, 2026 to use their funds.

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                               U.S. Department of the Treasury

   September 2022 Quarterly HAF Data Demonstrate Increased Reach to Homeowners

                                        February 10, 2023

Participant-reported data for the American Rescue Plan-funded Homeowner Assistance Fund
(HAF) through September of 2022 show an acceleration of assistance to low-income and
underserved homeowners across the country. As of September 30, HAF programs had assisted
over 162,000 homeowners across the country, a 138% increase in the number of homeowners
assisted as of June 2022. Total obligations and expenditures across the program also more than
doubled from July through the end of September. Moreover, real-time dashboards published by
many states show significant further acceleration in the final months of the year, which will be
reflected in numbers to be released in the coming months that capture totals through December
2022.

States, U.S. territories, and Tribes participating in HAF are providing assistance in a number of
innovative ways that help ensure homeowners facing pandemic-related financial hardship receive
timely assistance. HAF programs are building awareness through strategic outreach to increase
access among homeowners, especially for socially disadvantaged individuals and those who need
reasonable accommodations. HAF programs across the country reduced applicants’ barriers to
assistance by increasing customer service options, expanding program offerings, and fine-tuning
administrative processes to increase efficiency. The HAF Program continues to empower
homeowners with the tools and resources needed to remain in their homes. For example:

   •   The State of California HAF Program has focused its outreach on underserved
       communities through multilingual, culturally competent assistance resources. For
       instance, the HAF application is available in six languages and the program’s contact
       center – which has handled over 190,000 calls as of Jan. 1, 2023 – can provide
       assistance in more than 200 languages. The state has also worked to keep the application
       as streamlined as possible; if an applicant has the necessary documents ready, the state
       estimates that the application can be completed in less than 15 minutes. Due to these
       efforts, as of Jan. 1, 2023, 88% of applicants surveyed by the program (5,676 applicants)
       reported that the application was easy to complete, and 91% said the documents were
       easy to upload.

   •   The State of Michigan’s HAF program, after conducting a systemwide assessment,
       realized it needed to increase the availability of customer service agents to help
       homeowners apply. To quickly increase staff capacity, the HAF Program contracted with
       the state’s 211 service to answer questions, fill out applications for those without internet
       access, provide status updates to applicants and refer homeowners to other services they
       need.
   •   The State of Nevada’s HAF Program uses a data-driven approach to recalibrate
       program offerings based on the most common reasons for application denial, thereby
       continuously improving its application process and contacting denied applicants to
       inform them of other opportunities for assistance. Nevada’s Program also directly
       reached out to applicants who did not return to the website to complete their
       applications. These efforts, combined with increased marketing, resulted in a 300%
       increase in households assisted over a three-month period (July through September
       2022).



HAF was designed to support homeowners experiencing financial hardship, working in
conjunction with a range of other foreclosure prevention initiatives implemented by the Biden-
Harris Administration that has resulted in historically low foreclosure filings. According to Black
Knight data, foreclosure starts remain 30% below pre-pandemic levels. After a planning process
during which Treasury required states, territories, and Tribes to inform their plans with data and
community input, HAF programs began providing assistance in the first half of 2022 as other
foreclosure protections wound down. HAF programs across the country are assisting
homeowners both by providing direct assistance and by helping homeowners access relief
through their mortgage servicers, including loss mitigation on government-backed loans.

Treasury has taken numerous actions to ensure that HAF empowers states, territories, and Tribal
governments to reach the most vulnerable homeowners, including requiring participants to
structure and target assistance based on data-driven assessments of homeowner needs, with an
emphasis on data that identifies disparate hardships across demographic groups. Reporting
through September 30, 2022 shows that HAF assistance is reaching a much broader range of
economically vulnerable and traditionally underserved homeowners than prior federal mortgage
assistance and foreclosure prevention programs:

Excluding omitted data or data not reported,
   • 57% of HAF assistance was delivered to very low-income homeowners (those earning
       50% of area median income and below);
   • 35% of HAF homeowners self-identified as Black and 20% self-identified as Latino; and
   • 64% of HAF beneficiaries were female.

As rising interest rates further strain housing affordability, particularly for homeowners with
lower incomes, HAF funds continue to serve as a crucial resource to assist in resolving
delinquency, providing mortgage payment assistance, and addressing other threats to housing
stability. HAF participants have until September 30, 2026 to use their funds to assist
homeowners in their communities.

HAF is an important part of a broader Biden-Harris administration effort to help struggling
borrowers across the country remain in their homes. The Biden-Harris administration has
engaged a series of measures that protected homeowners from foreclosure, including a
foreclosure moratorium, increased options for mortgage payment forbearance, and enhanced loan
modifications to resolve delinquencies, among other initiatives that have together helped keep
mortgage delinquencies and foreclosures below pre-pandemic levels.

A summary of Quarterly HAF participant data through September 30, 2022 is available here.


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