Treasury Launches a HAF Program Promising Practices Resource
Alas, the COVID-19 pandemic continues to linger with no end in sight. Therefore, efforts to promote collaboration in programs aimed at addressing financial burdens created by this crisis are always welcome to see.
One of the assistance programs established to help households affected by the pandemic to meet financial obligations is the Department of the Treasury’s Homeowners Assistance Fund (HAF), whereby states, U.S. territories and tribal governments received federal funding to work with mortgage servicers to assist these struggling homeowners to prevent foreclosures and delinquencies. Treasury recently launched a webpage featuring promising practices for state HAF program administrators when collaborating with mortgage servicers.
Treasury notes that better coordination between states and servicers can enable them to provide timely assistance to households, reduce administrative burden and increase transparency about the application process.
Among the key steps to build an efficient process with servicers, according to Treasury, is to build streamlined operations from the start. For example, California initially launched its HAF program pilot by sending a notification to servicers immediately upon receipt of a homeowner application. To more effectively serve the high number of applicants, the program administrators determined that conditional qualification of an applicant’s eligibility needed to be the first step. This streamlined the process for both the servicers and the California HAF program by reducing the number of requests overall, and the number of requests for updated information. The California HAF program also started the practice of using a data element within the Common Data File (CDF) to ensure timely and uniform communication with the servicers, which resulted in an overall update of the CDF and ultimately led to disbursement of funds on behalf of applicants more quickly.
The Treasury website then encourages states to promote timely coordinated processing and completion of applications using various steps, included obtaining permission from homeowners with a third-party authorization to enable communication between the servicer and the state HAF program on their behalf. It noted that Oklahoma’s HAF program, for example, began disbursing funds with participating servicers on behalf of applicants. However, its staff noticed a disconnect between departments within the servicer organization. When the state sent a payment, there was a delay on the servicer side in determining which homeowner’s account should receive the payment. To help expedite support for homeowners, Oklahoma HAF staff began sending an itemized and detailed remittance list along with detailed payment information via email to ensure the correct payment amounts were quickly applied to the appropriate accounts.
The resource also encouraged states to build process transparency with all stakeholders to ensure that applicants are engaged in the process of determining their best options. We encourage HAF program recipients to check out this resource to see if they can find some improvements to their programs to serve more homeowners nationwide.
Join us for our following Thompson Grants events:
Federal Grants Forum | Dec. 7-9, 2022 | Fort Lauderdale, Fla.
Nonprofit Legal, Finance, and Grants Conference | April 6-7, 2023 | Washington, D.C.
