I figured you should know the new buzz word for distressed homeowners is HOPE NOW,  the White House mortgage plan, but they should also have a sidebar called Another Hopeless SOS Website.

If you went to the website, you would most likely find it to be cumbersome and particularly not helpful. There's alot of resources listed (or so it seems) but only a couple of working links to some press releases.
On top of that problem, the administration if having difficulty finding qualified housing counselors. Apparently, the phones are ringing off the hook and without enough counselors to answer the phones, much less having face to face meetings, thus, the process is becoming a nightmare.
I tried calling but, was put on hold and since I was calling to just to see what would happen if I needed help, I hung up after waiting five minutes. Makes me wonder, should all the real estate agents who have extra time of their hands call the government and apply to become a housing counselor? I read somewhere that the Alliance believes that the best counselors would be real estate agents and lenders. Hmmmmmm. Oh yea, be careful which HOPE NOW website you go to- there's a few other non-profits called Hope Now!

The White House Mortgage plan will provide relief to some 1.2 million homeowners who will be facing ARM resets that are scheduled to start in January 2008 through 2009. To start the process a homeowner needs to call the hotline (1-888-995-HOPE).

Unfortunately, the plan is not a silver bullet but a step in the right direction. A more meaningful plan for homeowners (who aren't eligible for this plan), the million or so that have been hoodwinged by lenders and others who are facing foreclosure would have been great.
The biggest misconception about this plan is that the government is bailing out consumers, although the truth is; I believe a bailout of Wall Street. Hopefully, the need to make predatory lenders responsible is enforced and consumers protected is high up on the radar screen.
Eligible homeowners mostly include minorities with low to moderate incomes according to US Treasurer, Anna Escobedo Cabral. HOPE NOW was designed to help subprime borrowers who can at least afford the current, starter rate on a subprime loan, but will not be able to make the higher payments once the interest rate goes up. HOPE NOW members have agreed on a set of new industry-wide standards to provide systematic relief to these borrowers in one of three ways:

• Refinancing an existing loan into a new private mortgage;
  
• Moving them into an FHA Secure loan; or
  
• Freezing their current interest rates for five years.

Members of HOPE NOW include lenders, investors, mortgage providers and other servicers who cover 84% of currently outstanding subprime mortgages. The reason the alliance was formed back in August was due to the high volume of work that would've been required to evaluate the standard loan-by-loan process. Instead, the industry needed a streamlined approach to address this increased volume.