State Foreclosure Prevention Efforts: Mediation and Financial Assistance 
Housing foreclosure activity in the United States and New England increased dramatically at the beginning of the housing crisis in 2006 and remains elevated. Given their economic and social costs, policymakers have developed a number of policies designed to prevent foreclosures. In recent years, state and local policymakers in New England have implemented two major foreclosure prevention policies: foreclosure mediation programs and financial assistance programs.
This report reviews these two foreclosure prevention programs in the New England region. It explores how they are funded, weighs their benefits and challenges, and discusses their effectiveness at preventing foreclosures. The report concludes with policy recommendations for current and future foreclosure prevention programs.
Resources
Forums
Understanding the Housing Collapse: What Is To Blame and What Can Be Done?
Co-sponsored with the Rappaport Institute for Greater Boston at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government. This May 2010 conference featured an overview of current conditions, presentations of new research on housing, credit markets, and public policies; and discussions of public policies that might stabilize housing markets in the future. May 2010.
Housing and the Economy in Greater Boston: Trends, Impacts, and Potential Responses
Co-sponsored with the Rappaport Institute for Greater Boston at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government. The Center's working paper, The
Lack of Affordable Housing in New England: How Big
a Problem? Why Is It Growing? What Are We Doing About
It?, was released and discussed at this May 2006 event.
Policy Engagement
Testimony, Real Estate Hearing 
Massachusetts Joint Committee on the Judiciary (January 11, 2012)
Proposed legislation, Massachusetts:
An act to establish the mandatory foreclosure mediation with judicial review(proposed in 2012)
Presentations
State Foreclosure Prevention Efforts in New England: Mediation and Assistance
Citizens’ Housing and Planning Association, Foreclosure Committee (September 27, 2011)
Related Research
Are American Homeowners Locked into Their Houses? The Impact of Housing Market Conditions on State-to-State Migration
by Alicia Sasser Modestino and Julia Dennett
Research Department Working Paper 12-1
The Housing Bust and Housing Affordability in New England
by Robert Clifford
NEPPC Discussion Paper 10-1
The Lack of Affordable
Housing in New England: How Big a Problem? Why Is It Growing?
What Are We Doing About It?
by Alicia Sasser, Bo Zhao, and Darcy
Rollins (with an overview by Robert
Tannenwald)
NEPPC Working Paper 06-1
To review other Center research about housing policy, please visit our research index.