U.S. Department of the Treasury: December 2022 Quarterly HAF Data Demonstrate Increased Reach to Homeowners

Summary

A U.S. Department of the Treasury release dated April 7, 2023 on participant-reported data for the Homeowner Assistance Fund (HAF) through December 2022. It reports that as of December 31st HAF programs had assisted over 241,000 homeowners, a 49% increase since the quarter ending September 30, 2022, with total obligations and expenditures up 165% and 287% respectively between the second and fourth quarters of 2022. It describes process changes in North Carolina, which replaced signed assistance agreements with award letters, Indiana and Connecticut. It reports that 57% of approved applications were to very low-income homeowners, that 39% of HAF homeowners self-identified as Black and 20% as Latino, and that participants have until September 30, 2026 to use their funds.

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                                U.S. Department of the Treasury

       December 2022 Quarterly HAF Data Demonstrate Increased Reach to Homeowners

                                         April 7, 2023

Participant-reported data for the American Rescue Plan-funded Homeowner Assistance Fund
(HAF) through December of 2022 continue to show an acceleration of assistance to low-income
and underserved homeowners across the country. As of December 31 st, HAF programs had
assisted over 241,000 homeowners across the country, a 49% increase in the number of
homeowners assisted since the previous quarter ending September 30, 2022. Total obligations
and expenditures across the HAF program increased by 165% and 287%, respectively, between
the second quarter and the fourth quarter of 2022. In addition, the real-time public dashboards
that many states maintain to track their HAF programs continue to show rapid growth beyond
December 31, 2022 that is not captured in this Q4 dataset.

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 with many programs
making key improvements to scale up their operations. For example:

      The State of North Carolina’s HAF program streamlined its procedures to expedite
       payment processing to quickly get aid into the hands of homeowners who needed it the
       most. Initially, once a homeowner’s award was calculated, the program would issue an
       Assistance Agreement and require the homeowner to sign and return before it could
       process a payment. In the fourth quarter of 2022, the program eliminated the need for a
       signature and now issues the homeowner an Award Letter. HAF funds are obligated at
       the time the Award Letter is generated, and the program can move to payment processing
       without having to wait for the homeowner to return the signed form.

      The State of Indiana's HAF program has made changes to its processes and procedures
       to more quickly identify homeowners eligible for and in need of aid. These changes
       include adjusting the application process for determining financial hardship, allowing
       households to provide a reasonable fact-specific proxy for household income, and
       updating servicer communication processes to reduce errors and resolve issues quickly.
      The State of Connecticut’s HAF program more than quadrupled the number of
       homeowners assisted and funds disbursed in the last three months of 2022 by
       streamlining procedures and significantly reducing processing time.

Though many HAF programs have made significant progress, Treasury is continuing to closely
monitor recipients who have been slower in implementing aid and publishing data to ensure
accountability for state and territorial recipients of HAF funds. Treasury continues to urge
recipients to examine areas for improvement, including through the adoption of promising
practices highlighted on the Treasury website and in communications with program staff.

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 19% 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 December 31, 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 applications approved for assistance were to very low-income homeowners
       (those earning half the area median income and below);
    39% of HAF homeowners self-identified as Black and 20% self-identified as Latino; and
    65% 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 December 31, 2022 is available here.


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