Update/Correction: /Oregon Hardest Hit Spending Tops $83 Million; I Calculate 40% Used for Admin Cost and Cash on Hand.

Update/Correction: OHCS staff have provided updated information to me that indicates that admin expenses represent the minority, NOT the majority, of the "Admin Expenses and Cash On Hand" I reported on in my original post below.  OHCS has also provided a breakout of spending for non profits as part of their admin expense. 

Importantly, with just a little more than $16 million spent for admin through April, it now seems UNLIKELY to me that Oregon will need to request authority from Treasury to spend more than the $35.2 million already authorized for admin by Treasury. 

I have pasted below relevant information from OHCS before my original text, and have stricken text in my original post that does not accurately describe admin spending.

As of 05/01/12, actual OHSI expenditures are as follows:

Administrative Expenses: $16,045,779. This includes $6.21 million paid to non profits for their work on the Hardest Hit program.

Program Expenses (cumulative assistance provided):

MPA Program - $51,118,372

Loan Preservation Program (pilot) - $36,727

LRAPP (pilot) - $1,006,555

Total funds: $68,207,432
---------------------------------

(I have prepared a PDF table HERE that shows the data below with some additional breakouts; not shown is that the total Hardest Hit funding available for Oregon is $220 million).

Oregon Direct Assistance Spending Nearly $50 Million.

The latest Oregon Hardest Hit TARP spending report through March 31, 2012 from OHSI is HERE. It shows spending for direct assistance for three programs is now nearly $50 million [$49,876,870], helping 4,595 families. 

TARP Special Inspector Report Shows Oregon Total Draw Downs As of March 31, 2012 Of More than $83 million. 

A New TAPR Special Inspector General Quarterly Report to Congress is HERE. It shows [Pdf page 78] the "amount drawn down" by Oregon through March 31, 2012 was $83,501,070. 

My Calculation: Through March 31, 2012 Admin Expenses and Cash on Hand of More than $33.6 Million=40% of Amount Drawn Down to Date.

Subtracting the $49,876,870 in direct payments from the total funds drawn down leaves a total of $33,624,200 apparently drawn down for admin costs and for cash on hand. [There are usually tight advance draw down rules for federal programs] so I expect most of this is for admin costs].

Dividing that by the total amount drawn [$83,501,070] means that 40% of the total drawn down through March 31st was for admin expenses and for cash on hand.  

8th Amendment to Treasury Plan Show $35.2 Million Limit on Expenses.

Page 8 of the March 29, 2012 8th Amendment to the Oregon Hardest Hit Agreement with Treasury HERE shows a limit of $35,207,199 in Admin Expenses. With $33.6 million apparently already drawn down for admin expenses and cash on hand, this suggests that a further increase in admin expenses may be required in the future.

Originally created and posted on the Oregon Housing Blog.

OHCS/OHSI Before Two Oregon Legislative Committees this Week.

Legislative Audio web page that would allow you to listen live to these hearings is HERE (look for hearing room). 

Specifics on hearings from Legislative Committee Agenda website HERE:

Joint Ways and Means Subcommittee On Transportation and Economic Development
Date:  Wednesday-January 18
Time:  11:00 A.M.
Room: H-174
Rep. Read, Presiding Co-Chair
Work Session
3. Housing and Community Services Department - foreclosure counseling services
4. Housing and Community Services Department - Oregon Home Ownership Stabilization Initiative
Informational Meeting
Housing and Community Services Department - food assistance programs and needs


Senate, General Government, Consumer and Small Business Protection Committee
Date:  Thursday-January 19
Time:  8:00 A.M.
Room: HR C
Oregon Homeownership Stabilization Initiative
     - Margaret VanVliet, Director, Oregon Housing & Community Services
     - Michael Auman, Administrator, Homeownership Stabilization Initiative Division
     - Emily Reiman, Opportunity Works Manager, Neighborhood Economic Development
      Corp (NEDCO)
     - Adam Wagner, Homeowner & Participant in OHSI

Originally created and posted on the Oregon Housing Blog.

OHSI Hardest Hit Progams Rolling Out Today.

OHSI is rolling out new Hardest Hit programs and signing up more applicants for their mortgage payment assistance program.   

PDF of recent Power Point presented to Oregon legislative committee is HERE with more detail (including OHCS foreclosure related non HH programs) in PDF HERE.

I would look for announcements from OHSI/OHCS shortly.

Originally created and posted on the Oregon Housing Blog. 

Hardest Hit Slot Allocation Use by County As of September 30th.

From the OHSI Hardest Hit report through September 30th, I have created a table HERE that shows the useage of the mortgage payment assistance program compared to slots originally allocated to each county. 

Some observations as of Sept 30th:

1. Overall 77% of allocated slots have been awarded to approved applicants. 
2. In the 3 county Portland metro area slot usage is much higher at 216% [ Approved applicants were 1,247; original slot allocation was 477 slots].
3. Outside the Portland metro area only 59% of slots allocated were in use.
4. One of metro hardest hit counties had lower than statewide slot usage; Deschutes at 65%.

Originally created and posted on the Oregon Housing Blog.

Oregon Hardest Hit Data Out for 3rd Quarter: Cumulative Approval Rate Very Low.

The 2nd Oregon Hardest Hit performance report has been posted to the OHSI website HERE. It covers the quarter from July 1-September 30th and includes cumulative data for the Mortgage Payment Assistance Program. 

I haven't had a chance to analyze it in depth, and I expect OHSI will have a press release out soon with more perspective, but the one piece of data that caught my eye was on page 5.  

The data on that page shows that through September 30th. there were:

• A cumulative total of 18,735 unique applications
• 17,460 of those applications had actions completed,
• 3,846 applications had been approved,
• Another 1,275 applications had actions still pending at the end of September, and
• Of the 17,460 applications where action was completed, 13,614 were either withdraw or denied. That appears to mean that cumulatively 78% of applications where actions were completed [13,614/17,460] were withdrawn or denied and only 22% of completed actions to date [3,856 /17,460] were approvals.

Originally created and posted on the Oregon Housing Blog.

Hardest Hit Update from Council Meeting: Only 2,100 of 6,000 Mortgage Payment Program Applicants Are Actually Getting Payments Made.

At Oregon Housing Council meeting last Friday OHSI staff indicated that 2,100 Oregon families were now their having monthly loan payments made by OHSI. This is out of a universe of nearly 6,000 applications that were accepted by the Jan 14 deadline (six months ago) for the Mortgage Payment Assistance Program. 

OHCS staff indicated that US Treasury reviewers said recently that Oregon was ahead of other states (an Orlando Sentinel story HERE has data on Florida and several other states). OHCS staff also indicated they have heard (I think understandably) complaints about slowness in processing MPA application to the point where payment starts. 

No information about any specific recommendations or findings from the US Treasury review was presented at the meeting.

At the meeting OHSI staff did distribute hard copy of a Treasury blog post HERE, highlighting the HH work of an Oregon non profit partner, NEDCO.

While not mentioned at the Council meeting, Oregon's FIRST quarterly report on demographics and location of participants through June 30th should be available on line next Monday, as it has already been sent to US Treasury. 

A previous similar report from Michigan is HERE; Ohio HERE; North Carolina HERE; and from Illinois HERE.

Also not mentioned was the roll out date for the Deschutes and Jackson county principal reduction/refinance program that had been previously scheduled for launch by June 1. (My May 11 post about this program can be found HERE).

It's worth noting that the Housing Council has no formal role in the structure or operation/oversight of the Hardest Hit Fund in Oregon, so the OHSI briefing might be viewed as a courtesy.

Originally created and posted on the Oregon Housing Blog.

OHCS Hardest Hit Mortgage Payment Assistance Program Starts Making Mortgage Payments, "Majority" Expected to Start by June 1st; First Performance Report Delayed.

In PR HERE OHCS/OHSI has announced that it has begun making mortgage payments for those determined eligible in an application process that ended January 14th. 

OHCS says that 400 closing packages were sent to local partners last week and that closing packages for the "majority" of [6,000] eligible applications are expected to be sent to local partners by June 1st.

More about this program can be found in FAQ's HERE.

Upcoming Developments: Continuing Participation Requirements and 90 Day Delay in Posting of 1st Performance Report.

Continued Participation Requirements: In the FAQ's updated as of today there is this note about ongoing compliance requirements: 

MPA Program participants will be required to demonstrate continuing eligibility through a monthly verification process and to participate in a quarterly education program. Both the monthly verification and the quarterly education program will begin in June 2011. Participation will be required as long as benefits are provided. More information about the verification process and the Homeowner Education Program will be available on this website and at intake agency offices beginning May 1

Delay in Posting of First Performance Report 

PR also doesn't say, but website does, that initial Treasury performance report is NOW to be posted to OHSI website on July 25, 2011. This is a substantial 90 day CHANGE from posted information from last week which had the 1st performance report being posted on April 25, 2011, a week from now.

Posting of the 1st performance report on July 25th. would mean posting of the first report would occur more than 6 months after the conclusion of the January application period for this program.

Originally created and posted on the Oregon Housing Blog.

Oregon Says they Have "Begun" to Make Hardest Hit Mortgage Payment Assistance Program Payments, Says "Majority" Will Start in April/May.

In FAQ's updated yesterday, OHSI HERE says: 

OHSI has begun making payments for approved applicants. OHSI expects to initiate payments for the majority of approved MPA applicants throughout April and May. 

Note: The window for applicants for this program closed on January 14, 2011, 90 days ago.

Originally created and posted on the Oregon Housing Blog.

OHCS: Halfway into Application Cycle 4,300 Mortgage Payment Assistance Applications Completed, Another 3,400 in Process.

At about the halfway point in the application cycle, OHCS staff have advised me that 4,300 unemployed or under employed home owners have completed the online application for the Oregon Mortgage Payment Assistance Program, with another 3,400 applicants in some stage of completion. 

This $100 million program has a minimum of 5,000 slots available, with recipients to be chosen by individual county lotteries from amongst all applications received by January 14, 2011. (My prior table HERE had estimated chances of wining by area, using only counts of unemployed; ACTUAL chances of winning will be determined by number of accepted applications in each county vs. number of slots in that county).

The OHSI website, which includes an on line eligibility test for this program, is HERE. 

Originally created and posted on the Oregon Housing Blog.

Economic Impact of Oregon Hardest Hit Mortgage Payment Assistance Program Will be a LOT Bigger than Most Realize.

$100 Million in Mortgage Payments for 5,000 Winning Families Will Produce:

1. The Equivalent of 5,000 jobs@ $20,000 Per Year,
2. The Salary Equivalent of $332 Million, 
3. $10 Million in Local Property Taxes.

• On the surface, the 5,000 slots for the Oregon Hardest Hit Unemployed Mortgage Payment Assistance Program will produce the equivalent of 5,000 jobs paying $20,000 per year @113% of the 2011 Oregon minimum wage of $8.50 per hour. (Actual pay equivalent is higher IF Mortgage Assistance Program payments are tax free to the recipient).
• Another way of looking at that would be that the $20,000 per year available for mortgage payments is the equivalent of a job with salary costs of $64,516 since the standard underwriting ratio would have the family paying 31% of their income for mortgage payments.
• Using this second method the $100 million in mortgage payments would be equivalent to $332 MILLION in salaries. ($100 million/31%=$322,580,645).
• Assuming the average property tax expense for the 5,000 winning families is $2,000 per year, the property tax portion of the $100 million in mortgage payments would total $10 MILLION. (The actual amount could be greater than the $10 million if property taxes in arrears are an eligible expense).
  

And.. An Estimated 85 FTE Jobs Will be Created for Intermediaries and OHSI, Using an Estimated $5.8 Million in Admin Expenses.

The table below shows that intermediaries likely will be able to devote 70 FTE's to the tasks of initial application processing and ongoing monitoring. If Oregon Homeownership Stabilization Initiative (OHSI) staff processing of applications and monitoring of intermediary work and program development add another 15 FTE, the total number of FTE for Intermediaries and OHSI would be 85.

NOTE that if eligible applications received exceed the 10,000 used for this estimate, total intermediary FTE will go UP from the 70 estimated here. FTE would also go up if total cost per staff hour is less than the $40 I used.

Total Cost Per Staff Hour	$           40
Annual TOTAL Staffing Cost	$    83,200
Initial $$ Per Eligible Application	$           80
$$ for Monitoring	$      1,000
Estimated Applications	10,000
Slots	5,000
Payments for Application Processing	$800,000
Payment for Monitoring	$5,000,000
Total Payments	$5,800,000
FTE Supported by Application Payments	9.62
FTE Supported by  On Going Monitoring	60.10
Total FTE Supported by Admin Fees	69.71

Originally created and posted on the Oregon Housing Blog.