Home for the Holidays!

Below is a letter from Jack Lloyd, a mortgage defense attorney for Legal Aid of North Carolina.

Dear citizen,

As an attorney with Legal Aid of North Carolina's (LANC) Mortgage Foreclosure Defense team, my work, like the work of many non-profit employees across North Carolina, is greatly enhanced by the network of non-profits encouraged and coordinated by the North Carolina Housing Coalition (NCHC). It is through this network that my work can meet the comprehensive needs of our clients. By facilitating relationships and joint projects among North Carolina non-profits, the Coalition expands the reach of Legal Aid's services and increases the depth and quality of our work.

Over the past year, NCHC has invited me and other LANC foreclosure attorneys to help lead continuing education workshops on the foreclosure process for housing counselors. Housing counselors are on the front line of the mortgage crisis. By including attorneys in their training and by providing non-profit collaboration, the Coalition has empowered hundreds of housing counselors to handle foreclosure cases more extensively before having to refer the homeowners to attorneys. This increased capacity on the part of counselors allows the attorneys to handle the more complex, time-consuming cases.

Recently, a family of four in the greater-Charlotte area was facing a near-disastrous situation: Doctors treating the uninsured, out-of-work father for heart failure discovered he also had a brain tumor-a month after determining that one of his daughters required new pins in her spine to combat scoliosis. The costs were overwhelming. The bank, unwilling to allow the family anymore time in their home, pushed to foreclose. The family, having no where to live exceept their car, contacted a housing counselor. Fortunately, their counselor had recently been to one of NCHC and LANC's continuing education workshops.

The counselor, therefore, knew not only the foreclosure basics (enough to stave off foreclosure until the case was referred to an attorney), but also the contacts she needed within the LANC foreclosure team for a smooth and efficient transfer of the case. Working with the housing counselor, the LANC attorneys discovered numerous problems with the bank's claims and forced the bank to dismiss its case. Although health problems remain for the father, because of the network and workshops created by the NC Housing Coalition, the family will be spending this Christmas in their home, not in their car.

Please donate generously to NC Housing Coalition. Their work helps many of us to do our work better, and that's good for all North Carolinians.

Yours very truly,

Jack Lloyd
Mortgage Foreclosure Defense Attorney
Legal Aid of North Carolina, Inc.

Please click here to donate.