HUD to Provide $5.1 Million in Grants for Housing Counseling Training

The ""U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development"":http://www.hud.gov (HUD) announced Monday the availability of more than $5.1 million in grants for housing counseling training.

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HUD plans to fund eligible organizations to deliver full-spectrum training. According to an announcement from the agency, the initiative is part of the Obama administration's effort to provide quality housing counseling to the nation's homeowners, buyers, and renters.

""Every day, our HUD-approved counseling organizations help families to make more informed choices about buying or renting,"" said HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan. ""Right now, these counseling programs are critical in helping thousands of families avoid foreclosure and remain in their

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homes. That's why we've increased the funding for housing counseling by 36 percent in this year's HUD budget.""

Approved by HUD, counseling agencies provide homeownership counseling and financial literacy education to renters as well as homeless individuals and families.

In addition to HUD's Housing Counseling Grant program, which provides approximately $79 million for comprehensive counseling, reverse mortgage counseling, and supplemental funding for mortgage modification and mortgage scam assistance, there is a focus on providing services in languages other than English.

The new funds are available to provide training activities to improve and standardize counseling quality. Applicants must be public or nonprofit organizations with tax exempt status under and have at least two years of national experience in housing counseling training services.

They must provide nationwide training, and the program must contain basic and advanced courses and include topics such as general counseling, credit and financial literacy, matching clients with loan products, homebuyer education, avoiding delinquency and predatory lending, foreclosure prevention, reverse mortgages, rental housing, and mortgage fraud counseling.

Full funding details and requirements are available via the Notice of Funding Availability on the ""HUD Web site"":http://www.hud.gov.