Lenders Sign-on for Plan to Help Prevent Home Foreclosures

JIM LEHRER:

We begin our economy trio with the announcement today of help for troubled homeowners. Ray Suarez has that story.

RAY SUAREZ:

Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson worked with six of the nation's largest financial institutions on the latest plan to head off more foreclosures. And he joins me now.

Mr. Secretary, welcome.

HENRY PAULSON, U.S. Treasury Secretary:

Ray, it's good to be here.

RAY SUAREZ:

Let's start with the mechanics of the plan. If you're one of those people who's had payment problems and you get a letter from one of these lenders saying, "You qualify for Project Lifeline," how does it work? What's possible now?

HENRY PAULSON:

Ray, what you do is, if you get a letter, you've got 10 days to call. And you call — there's a number in the letter you're going to get that goes through the procedures, but essentially you're going to call the servicer and you're going to say, "I want to stay in my home."

And then you're going to be given a simple form to fill out with enough financial information to let the servicer determine whether there is a modification that can be done that will allow you to stay in your home.

And again, Ray, what this program does is it right now involves the servicers that are going to reach 50 percent of the market. So there's another 50 percent that won't be reached right now through this program, but anyone that is facing foreclosure should be picking up the phone and dialing 888-995-HOPE, and reaching out, and saying, "We want to stay in our home."