Released: September 28, 2007

Latino families scramble to save homes

Source: Hiram Soto, Enlace - News Report

Araceli Flores was so happy to buy a three-bedroom house that she didn’t ask many questions about the mortgage.

The person who helped her didn’t speak Spanish, so Flores flipped through the contract and signed it without knowing what she was getting into. Now, the only thing she knows is that she is about to lose her property.

“Years of work, years of acquiring good credit are in jeopardy,” said the 45-year-old factory worker who is trying to renegotiate her mortgage.

“Everything I’ve achieved is suddenly falling apart.”

Latino families have been impacted the most by the wave of high-interest mortgages, the drop in the value of homes, and mortgages that are liberally granted to families that probably shouldn’t have bought a home in the first place.

Now a group of Hispanic professionals in real estate, government agencies and non-profit organizations is trying to help Latino families deal with problems too large to face alone.

With volunteers from the National Association of Hispanic Real Estate Agents at the forefront, this coalition has begun offering clinics in Spanish to provide one-on-one help for families that have problems paying their mortgage. The workshops have been crowded to maximum capacity, with experts analyzing each family on a case-by-case basis and lawyers available to help with any irregularities.

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