The Department of Housing and Urban Development has created a new advisory committee that will explore ways to make counseling more accessible for new homebuyers and troubled borrowers.
The Dodd-Frank Act of 2010 called for the creation of a 12-member advisory committee to improve housing counseling and develop innovative strategies to support community-based counseling agencies.
The Housing Counseling Federal Advisory Committee includes three representatives from each of the four mortgage, real estate, consumer and housing counseling sectors.
The committee is slated to have its first meeting June 21.
Pamela Marron, a senior loan officer at Innovative Mortgage Services Inc. in New Port Richey, Fla., is looking forward to getting started. "I'm in Florida, the land of underwater homes," she said an interview Wednesday.
She noted non-government-sponsored enterprise interest-only mortgages and home equity lines of credit are starting to reset and it is very difficult to refinance.
"I would tell them what is really happening at ground zero. And I am expecting the other members will have similar stories," Marron said. "We have a good diverse group and I am excited about that."
In announcing the committee members, the agency stressed that its mission would be to "expand access to the HUD's housing counseling programs, develop new innovative strategies to support community-based counseling agencies, and identify methods to leverage our resources to amplify the impact of federally funded housing counseling."
"This panel will also develop new metrics to evaluate the health and capacity of the housing counseling industry, specifically in the context of disaster recovery and identify ways to improve the use of technology in housing counseling."
Meg Burns, a former top HUD official, has also been selected to serve on the advisory committee. Burns noted the counseling provisions in the Dodd-Frank Act were originally drafted back in 2000. It was designed to elevate the importance of housing counseling at HUD.
Housing counseling can include fair housing counseling, rental assistance, pre-purchase counseling, and the basics of finding a mortgage lender or drawing up a household budget.
"It really goes well above and beyond what must people are familiar with as a result of the foreclosure crisis," she said in an interview Wednesday.
Burns is currently a managing director at The Collingwood Group, a consulting firm in Washington, D.C.
In addition to Burns and Marron, following are the committee members:
Mortgage Sector
Linda Ayres is employed by New American Funding as a loan consultant. Throughout Ayres' 23-year career in mortgage lending, she has been involved with local nonprofit organizations that provide homebuyer education and down payment assistance.
José Larry Garcia is a Vietnam-era veteran from El Paso, Texas. Garcia is employed by the El Paso Credit Union Affordable Housing Inc. as president and chief executive. He has 14 years of experience in managing a successful national pilot Affordable Housing Credit Union Service Organization and HUD housing counseling agency.
Real Estate Members
E.J. Thomas is currently employed with Habitat for Humanity and serves as the CEO. Thomas has served in this position for more than 10 years and is responsible for the oversight and operation of one of the nation's top-50 Habitat affiliates in terms of the number of homes constructed, which reached 22 houses in 2012.
Cassie Hicks is employed by the University of Southern Mississippi, Institute for Disability Studies as the Assistant Director of Housing. She is the assistant manager in the family-owned property management business of Hicks Consulting Service. Additionally, she served as the assistant vice president/compliance officer/branch manager at Bankcorp South Bank from September 1993 to February 2001.
Alejandro Becerra is employed with the National Association of Hispanic Real Estate Professionals as the Director of Research. During the past five years, Becerra has authored the annual State of Hispanic Real Estate Professionals, which recommends increasing counseling funds and outreach to Hispanics.
Consumer Members
Afreen Alam is a community leader who has been at the forefront of housing counseling both on the ground and on the intermediary level. Alam recently returned to Chaya Community Development Corp., a HUD-approved counseling agency since 2007, as its executive director. Chaya CDC works with a diverse base of renters, homebuyers, and homeowners in Queens, N.Y., with a focus on tenant rights, the home-buying process, foreclosure prevention and retrofitting.
Ellie Pepper has been working for 30 years on issues related to disenfranchised communities, with a focus on affordable housing for the past 10 years. In 2012, she was hired by Empire Justice Center as the regional coordinator for the Northeast and Hudson Valley region of New York State as part of the almost $1.5 million Homeownership Protection Program anchor partner, a $20 million grant program the Empire Justice Center oversees for the New York State Office of the Attorney General. Prior to joining the Empire Justice Center she was the deputy director of Better Neighborhoods Inc., a nonprofit, HUD-approved homeownership center providing housing counseling services and developing affordable housing.
Housing Counseling
Judy Hunter is currently employed with Rural Community Assistance Corp. as the housing counseling manager. She officially became the housing counseling manager in 2008. The RCAC is a nonprofit organization that provides training, technical and financial resources, and advocacy so rural communities can achieve their goals and visions. Headquartered in West Sacramento, Calif., RCAC employees serve rural communities in the Western United States and the Pacific Islands.
Arthur "Buz" Zeman is employed by Housing Options Provided for the Elderly. He has served as the executive director of HOPE since 1993. HOPE serves seniors and caregivers of seniors with counseling services related to housing and many related issues, such as access to public benefit programs, budgeting and planning. Zeman stated that he has been passionate about great HECM counseling since 1993. During his tenure, HOPE has received a HUD comprehensive housing counseling grant since 1994.
Terri Redmond has been employed by the Pennsylvania Housing Finance Agency for the past 12 years and currently serving as the manager of counseling and education. Since the creation of Redmond's position, PHFA has experienced a 100% increase in the number of counseling agencies that participate in PHFA's network.
