Snap Fact #111

The President signed the "Helping Families Save Their Homes Act" and the "Fraud Enforcement and Recovery Act" into law (May, 2009), landmark pieces of legislation addressing the problems that helped set off the economic crisis we are fighting through now.

"These landmark pieces of legislation will protect hardworking Americans, crack down on those who seek to take advantage of them, and ensure that the problems that led us into this crisis never happen again," said President Obama. Although much more remains to be done in this arena, the President pushed for and got these first step bills through Congress.

The Helping Families Save Their Homes Act was an important step towards stabilizing and reforming our nation’s financial and housing markets – helping American homeowners and increasing the flow of credit during these difficult economic times. This legislation was intended to strengthen our nation's housing sector and facilitate the goals of the Administration's Making Home Affordable Program by helping millions of American homeowners stay in their homes.

Accomplishment of this goal not only helps the homeowner remain in their homes, it helps entire communities if neighboring properties are not put into foreclosure, abandoned, stretched through drawn out legal proceedings, and then sold by the repossessing banks at often sub-market prices - bringing down the value of the entire housing market.

The Fraud Enforcement and Recovery Act (FERA) gives the federal government more tools to crack down on the kind of fraud that put thousands of hardworking families at risk of losing their homes despite doing everything right to live within their means. It expands the Department of Justice’s ability to prosecute at virtually every step of the process from predatory lending on Main Street to the manipulation on Wall Street. It also creates a bipartisan Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission to investigate the financial practices that brought us to this point, so that we make sure it never happens again.

The endeavor begun by the President in 2009 needs to be continued and expanded by more intelligent by-partisan legislation that will help the housing market recover.