Barack Obama, Foreclosure Prevention Program | featured news

The average homeowner in the Obama administration's signature foreclosure-prevention program owes more on their mortgage than the home is worth, yet the program does virtually nothing to address this problem, according to a scathing new report by a government watchdog.

Only about a third of the homeowners who have successfully completed the trial period of the Obama administration's mortgage modification program have been offered permanent relief, according to new federal data obtained by the Huffington Post.

The conversion rate -- about 33 percent -- is woefully short of what the Treasury Department had forecast. Treasury thought the rate would be "ranging up to 75 percent," Herbert M. Allison Jr., assistant secretary for financial stability, told the Congressional Oversight Panel in October.

President Obama will use a campaign stop for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid  to announce a new initiative to help support homeowners in states hit hardest by the housing crisis.

The Obama administration’s effort to help homeowners avoid foreclosure may not achieve its goal of helping 3 million to 4 million borrowers, a government watchdog group says.

Housing advocates who work with homeowners say that while President Obama’s loan modification program could help thousands of New Yorkers, it has been slow to get off the ground.