DSNews The homepage of the servicing industry
Faith Schwartz will be stepping down from her post as executive director of the ""HOPE NOW Alliance"":http://www.hopenow.com, effective June 1, 2010. Schwartz has led the industry coalition of[IMAGE]
mortgage servicers, investors, housing counselors, and other market participants since it was formed by Congress in October 2007.
Under Schwartz's leadership and guidance, HOPE NOW has served as a cornerstone of the industry's efforts to preserve homeownership. To date, Schwartz and her team have organized more than 70 local borrower outreach events in hard-hit markets across the country to bring servicers and struggling homeowners face-to-face to find alternatives to foreclosure.
With Schwartz at the helm, HOPE NOW has aligned industry initiatives to meet the housing crisis head-on and helped to boost the mortgage industry's completed loan modifications to nearly 3 million since 2007. The coalition has become an integral cog in the administration's Making Home Affordable program, even developing its own proprietary HOPE LoanPort system to speed assistance to distressed homeowners by allowing foreclosure counselors
[COLUMN_BREAK]to submit completed Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP) applications directly to servicers and track the status electronically.
In an online statement, Schwartz said, ""After 25 years of broad experience in all cycles of the mortgage market, my role in building and managing HOPE NOW has been the most challenging and rewarding...of my career. Working with diverse membership has required me to maintain a broad and inclusive strategy in the face of the housing crisis. Equally important has been the work through two administrations. In all cases the staff and leadership worked incredibly hard to make a difference.""
Schwartz explained to DSNews.com that she will continue to serve in an advisory capacity with both HOPE NOW and HOPE LoanPort in the coming months, and the two organizations will remain focused on their mission of homeownership preservation throughout 2010. Larry Gilmore, the current deputy director of the HOPE NOW Alliance and CEO of the HOPE LoanPort Web portal, will assume the role of acting executive director when Schwartz steps down.
""Going forward, I will remain most interested in stabilizing the housing market, wringing out inefficiencies, and promoting much broader transparency in how loans are originated and serviced,"" Schwartz said. ""It is my hope the markets can and will recover, there is a rational and valuable process around GSE reform, and that they evolve away from a government-owned model to well managed, appropriately regulated independent model.""
Schwartz added, ""I'm interested in constructive public policy that helps revitalize the housing markets, improve access to sustained housing, and find ways to leverage public/private dollars to rebuild a strong vibrant housing market.""
