Political Quotes

“Mr. President, today I am introducing the Preserving Homes and Communities Act. I introduced an earlier version of this legislation in 2009. I am pleased to again be joined by Senators Durbin, Leahy, Merkley, Whitehouse, and Franken as cosponsors of this bill. The sheer number of foreclosures across the country is startling. Since the beginning of 2009, there have been approximately 5 million foreclosures, and the Center for Responsible Lending estimates there will be a total of 9 million foreclosures between 2009 and 2012. In my home state of Rhode Island, the numbers are similarly shocking because 1 in every 10 mortgaged homeowners is in foreclosure or seriously delinquent on their mortgage payment. Rhode Island families have felt the effects of the recession and the national housing crisis harder than most, which is why I worked with the Obama Administration and led the effort to expand the Hardest Hit Fund to include Rhode Island. This program is just getting underway, and my hope is that it will provide much needed targeted assistance to struggling homeowners and expand the number of loss mitigation tools in order to prevent more Rhode Islanders from falling into foreclosure. Unfortunately, additional efforts are needed because the foreclosure crisis has grown in complexity as a result of the revelations last fall pointing to poorly handled, if not illegal, foreclosure processing.…”