Daily News | Thousands of Pa. homeowners feel stuck in a high-stakes game of telephone with their homes, vital utilities on the line
In April, she applied to a Pennsylvania program that promises to help homeowners recover from the financial impact of the pandemic.
By mid-December, more than 6,000 applications were in the final stage of approval, according to public data. Those people, mostly stuck in debt verification, had been waiting, on average, more than 6 months, said Mandy McIntyre, a PAHAF spokesperson. “This program is not what you promised and absolutely not what the applicants thought they were getting into,” someone complained in an email to Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf’s office in October.
Fajinmi’s application was finally approved in November, more than six months after she began the process. The program contacted her mortgage company July 1, but did not receive the required information until Nov. 7, McIntyre said. Even after the payment was made, Fajinmi said it took her bank more than a month to apply it to her account because the bank claimed it needed more information from PAHAF, adding weeks of extra worry.
The program was waiting for Mr. Cooper to provide information for almost 500 customers, the PAHAF worker said — the most outstanding requests of any company. In a statement, a Mr. Cooper spokesperson said the company continues to work closely with the program to provide the required information and resolve discrepancies.
The prolonged back-and-forth leaves some applicants feeling as if they are playing a high-stakes game of telephone, relaying information from their mortgage company to the program and vice versa. Another two weeks passed. An administrator apologized for the “constant delays,” telling the woman: “We are aware of a multitude of program/systems/process issues and are dedicated to fixing.”
Despite several requests from the program to participate, including a phone call in early August, her local water authority insisted that it could not agree to take part without approval from its board. The woman’s water was turned off in the 11-day period between that phone call and the next scheduled board meeting.
Sim sent a copy of his bill, which included a warning about the termination, to his caseworker. A few days later, he woke to a house that was oddly quiet. The whirring of the air conditioner was gone. It was one of the hottest weeks of the year, and inside it was sweltering, Sim said. The fridge and freezer were full of groceries that had to be thrown out; he lived off canned beets, tinned ravioli, and bread with peanut butter.
Nonetheless, in September, the water was turned off. To prepare, he’d filled gallon jugs of water, which he poured over himself in the shower. State officials wanted to avoid this: One of the program’s goals is to prevent people from having their utilities shut off in the first place. Officials said the rule ensured that applicants’ requests for help with other housing costs did not jeopardize their chances of receiving mortgage assistance by putting them over the program’s per-household cap, originally $30,000.
Keisha Welsh applied in March, hoping for help with her gas bill. By May, she was more than $1,000 behind. In September, she received a notice warning that her gas would be shut off unless she caught up. “Every time I call, it’s like there is nothing they can tell me,” one applicant wrote in a Facebook message to the program in July.
When Sandi Zembrowski received a grant agreement for her late mortgage payments, she immediately signed it electronically. A confirmation email arrived moments later.
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