When the statewide senior legal hotline model was launched and expanded by a partnership of AARP Foundation and the Administration on Aging close to 20 years ago, the goal was to connect seniors with free, high quality legal advice and referral through the easy accessibility of the telephone. Most likely unforeseen at the time, however, was that the legal hotline platform would serve as infrastructure for responding to natural disasters and various surges in legal needs.

 

The helpline model was adapted to respond to legal problems related to hurricanes in Texas and Alabama, (see Hotlines and Hurricanes, LHQ Winter 05) and has served to answer the deluge of calls resulting from changes in the law permitting living wills and health care powers of attorney. The enactment of Medicare Part D sparked an effort by many senior legal hotlines to identify and enroll seniors in the low-income subsidy.

 

The latest legal upheaval is, of course, mortgage foreclosures. The California Senior Legal Hotline (SLH), in operation since 1994, responded to this need so valiantly its efforts were featured in an April 14, 2009 Wall Street Journal story.   (The story doesn’t say so, but all three seniors profiled were SLH clients.)

 

In 2008, the SLH assisted 288 clients facing threats of foreclosure, and many more with foreclosure-related issues, such as tenants whose landlords were losing the property. The pace of problems picked up in 2009, with at least 10 calls per day coming in during the spring of this year.

 

The California SLH, part of LSC-funded Legal Services of Northern California (LSNC), became a HUD-approved housing counseling agency in 2007, just in time for the arrival of the foreclosure crisis. On its second try, it obtained a small, direct HUD housing counseling grant, part of which is for reverse mortgage counseling. Then, in 2008, being an approved counseling agency made it possible for the program to obtain a National Foreclosure Mitigation Counseling Program grant through NeighborWorks and another intermediary, West Tennessee Legal Services, which subcontracts with many legal aid programs that do housing counseling.

 

Because of these grants, the California hotline did not have to lay people off when state funding ended in late 2008. It did, however, force a shift in priorities in that foreclosure counseling work is being done to a large degree instead of a significant portion of SLH’s traditional hotline function, not in addition, which would be preferable.

The Foreclosure Project has three assistance paths for homeowner callers:

• Advice-preventive for clients who are not yet in danger, or ameliorative for clients who are certain to lose their home and need to weigh available options;
• Self-help, in which clients are provided with detailed educational material, forms and sample letters as well as advice on how to approach their loan servicers about possible solutions; this may also involve coaching for pro se court filings in emergency situations and help in finding a local attorney to take on representation in meritorious cases.
• Negotiation with servicers, lenders, trustees and opposing attorneys to achieve what appears to be a realistic modification, but one that is unusually difficult -- or where the client is unable to act effectively on her/his own.

In February, a Sacramento law firm invited SLH to present an introductory training for private attorneys interested in helping out pro bono. Then in March, SLH hosted two full days of training for legal aid and private attorneys. As a result six new volunteer attorneys began taking foreclosure calls regularly in the Sacramento office, and three others are working on cases in or headed for litigation.

 

The hotline has become a central partner in California networks of legal aid and other public interest law firms, private attorneys, counseling agencies and others active in sharing notes, contacts and analyses of the fast-changing world of foreclosures and government programs meant to address the problem. Together, they have promoted state legislation to help level the playing field, met with high officials of several large banks and pursued litigation in selected cases involving especially egregious predatory lending. SLH staff and volunteers, in their capacity as the local (III-B) provider of legal services for Sacramento County seniors, are litigating a case on behalf of a senior victim against Wachovia Mortgage. First filed in bankruptcy court in December, it was removed to the federal district court and is now in discovery in the county court.

 

While an implied threat of litigation can be meaningful, most of the successes registered by the hotline’s foreclosure project resulted from finding and negotiating with the right people at loan servicer companies.

 

SLH has been particular active in promoting the careful use of reverse mortgages as a foreclosure prevention tool when appropriate in light of a client’s situation and wishes, and when no better solution is possible. There have been some notable successes, including a case that settled in June involving a $400,000 write-off of principal by Bank of America/Countrywide. But most servicers still resist the concept for a combination of reasons, including confusion about how reverse mortgages work; and neither FHA nor other government-sponsored refinance/modification programs have incorporated the idea, which could help huge numbers of seniors save their homes.

 

Other foreclosure-related cases are also addressed: More and more excellent tenants are being evicted, some in flagrant violation of the law, by agents of banks that foreclosed on non-resident owners. And the latest epidemic involves foreclosure “rescue” scams, perpetrated, advocates suspect, by many of the same crooks who sought to get rich quick as predatory brokers during the housing bubble just a few years ago.

 

The hotline has an automated call back system that invites clients to register in a queue (and there is a separate one for foreclosure callers) instead of waiting on hold, then receive a call when their turn comes and an advocate is ready. Others choose to be forwarded straight to a receptionist, who records eligibility information and sets a specific callback appointment - while they last - for sometime in the following two work days.

 

Not even the best intake system, however, can suffice to meet current demand (foreclosure and other cases alike) for help at SLH with its current capacity. Overall at the hotline, average time spent on a case has risen from less than an hour per case in 2005 to more than two hours now, in part because of the skyrocketing number of foreclosure cases. Many callers with other types of questions find it harder than ever to reach an advocate.

 

Staff at the hotline, which incorporates the local III-B senior legal service program and a number of other affiliated special projects, comprises four attorneys (soon six) and eight (soon nine) paralegals; three of the latter are primarily involved in foreclosure cases, with two of the attorneys heavily involved in the area, among their other responsibilities. There are 25 to 30 volunteers active at any given time, most prominently retired attorneys and law students. Nine are now involved exclusively or primarily with the foreclosure project. 

 

For more information on the project and case descriptions, please read the California Senior Legal Hotline Quarterly Newsletter: current issue at http://tiny.cc/SLHnewsletter, previous ones available from SLH’s web site, www.seniorlegalhotline.org. For a compilation of foreclosure case vignettes, click here.

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