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""Bank of America"":http://www.bankofamerica.com said Thursday that the company plans to more than triple its number of customer assistance centers to help borrowers who are having trouble making their mortgage payments.
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The expansion will bring the number of BofA mortgage help centers to 40 in 22 states by early summer.
Bank of America is already operating 12 fulltime customer assistance centers, including five opened within the past four months. Since the first center opened in 2009, the company says its counselors have met with more than 17,000 homeowners, including more than 3,700 during the first quarter of this year.
Beginning this month and into July, the bank plans to open 28 new centers in some of the metropolitan areas that have been the hardest hit by the economic and housing downturn.
Seven of the new centers will be located in California, including two additional locations in greater Los Angeles, as well as sites in San Diego, the Inland Empire (Riverside/San Bernardino), the Antelope Valley (Lancaster/Palmdale) and the northern and southern San Joaquin Valley (Modesto and Bakersfield).
Other metropolitan areas to be served by the new centers include Atlanta; Baltimore/Washington; Denver; two locations in Detroit; North Metro Detroit/Pontiac; Houston; Kansas City; Miami; Milwaukee; Nashville; Newark; New Orleans; Philadelphia; Raleigh; Richmond; San Antonio; St. Louis; and Tucson.
Additional openings are planned for the second half of 2011 to further expand the company's network of homeownership and foreclosure prevention centers.
""Although we see signs of improvement, including slowing mortgage delinquencies, many homeowners continue to
[COLUMN_BREAK]struggle to make their payments as a result of hardships in today's economic environment,"" said Rebecca Mairone, national mortgage outreach executive for Bank of America.
""Our teams at the customer assistance centers are experienced loan professionals, trained to counsel customers, follow each customer file through the entire loan modification process, make on-site decisions in many cases, and assist with other foreclosure prevention solutions if a modification is not possible,"" Mairone explained.
She says Bank of America is also planning to double its outreach staff this year, provide customers with more ways to contact the bank and ensure help centers are located in areas that are as convenient and comfortable for borrowers as possible.
Marc Morial, president and CEO of the ""National Urban League"":http://www.nul.org/, says Bank of America's targeted expansion of its customer assistance centers in some of the nation's hardest hit urban areas demonstrates the company's commitment and leadership in helping families remain in their homes.
""The National Urban League is working with the bank on many fronts to reach distressed homeowners around the country,"" Morial said. ""It is key that homeowners receive early assistance from servicers.""
Bank of America has also participated in 50 local community outreach events since the beginning of this year to enable distressed borrowers to meet face-to-face with mortgage specialists, and has another 34 scheduled in the next two months.
In an ""exclusive interview with DSNews.com"":http://dsnews.comarticles/bank-of-america-brings-in-industry-heavy-hitters-ds-news-exclusive-2011-04-28 last week, Bank of America's default servicing executive, Tony Meola, explained steps the company is taking internally to ensure its customers receive ""fair, fast, and final"" resolution to their mortgage situations.
Bank of America has assembled some well-recognized names in default servicing to head up critical areas of legacy servicing, including loan modifications, short sales, and complaint resolution.
Filling these executive roles are John Berens, the former default servicing executive for JPMorgan Chase; Bob Hora, Fannie Mae's national servicing operations executive; and Patrick Carey, who was previously CEO of Titanium Holdings. Together, these three have more than 70 years' experience in working with distressed borrowers.
