Housing Assistance: An Inventory of Fiscal Year 2010 Programs, Tax Expenditures, and Other Activities
U.S. Government Accountability Office
Making Home Affordable (MHA)
Administering Agency/Entity | Department of the Treasury |
Short Description | Includes several housing programs: the primary program, the Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP), shares the cost of reducing monthly payments on first lien mortgages with mortgage holders/investors and provides incentives to servicers, borrowers, and mortgage holders/investors. Also, the Home Affordable Foreclosure Alternatives Program assists homeowners seeking a short sale or deed-in-lieu of foreclosure; Home Price Decline Protection Incentives help modify loans in areas with steep home price declines; the Principal Reduction Alternative incentivizes investors to use principal reduction for certain mortgages; the Second Lien Modification Program assists homeowners with an eligible second lien mortgage and HAMP modification; the Treasury/ Federal Housing Administration (FHA) Second Lien Program pays servicers and investors if they partially or fully extinguish second liens on an FHA Short Refinance; and incentives for modifications of mortgages insured by FHA or Rural Housing Service. |
Primary Purpose | Emergency assistance to housing market or current homeowner |
Type of Housing Supported | Homeownership |
Type of Assistance | Other |
Fiscal Year 2010 Obligations | In February 2009, Treasury announced that MHA would use up to $50 billion in funds from the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP). Treasury subsequently reduced its total obligations of its TARP-funded housing programs to $45.6 billion, of which $29.9 billion has been allocated to the Making Home Affordable program. Treasury officials estimated that the last MHA incentive payment would likely occur sometime in mid-2018. Actual payments made in fiscal year 2010 for all programs under the MHA program were $484 million. |