Aid helps dozens avoid foreclosure in North Idaho

More than 300 Idaho homeowners, including 46 in North Idaho, qualified for $13 million in emergency housing loans to forestall foreclosures.

That money is part of $1 billion set aside by Congress and distributed through the Department of Housing and Urban Development.

In Washington the same Emergency Home Loan Program provided assistance to 380 homeowners.

The final selection was done on a first-come basis after applicants became eligible earlier this year.

On average, Idaho recipients received loans of $40,000 that will be disbursed over two years. The program writes down the interest-free loan over five years if the homeowner remains in the house for that time.

Of the 46 loans issued in North Idaho, the breakdown was: Coeur d’Alene, 12; Post Falls, nine; Hayden, six; Lewiston, five; Rathdrum, four; and the remainder distributed to other cities in North Idaho.

One Coeur d’Alene resident, Nanette Adams, was quoted in a press release saying, “This was a great program that came just in time for us.”

Once approved for the program, the Adams household was brought current on its mortgage, and payments have been reduced for the next two years. 

“We had run out of options, and without the program we would have had to let our home go into foreclosure and move in with our oldest daughter,” Adams said in a release from the Boise-based Idaho Housing and Finance Association.