The Republican presidential nominee-in-waiting introduced a plan that he said would offer "deserving" homeowners the opportunity to "trade a burdensome mortgage for a manageable loan that reflects the market value of their home."

Under McCain's plan, homeowners facing foreclosure could apply for federal assistance, and the government would help them get new, affordable loans.

The homes would have to be owners' primary residences, and owners would have to prove they could afford the new loans, which would be 30-year, fixed-rate mortgages.

The new lender would receive a federal guarantee of the new mortgage.

McCain's plan would cost $3 billion to $10 billion and help as many as 400,000 homeowners, his aides said.

The plan represented a change of heart for the Arizona senator.

In a high-profile economic speech in late March, McCain said he saw little federal role in helping homeowners at risk of foreclosure. He said then it was chiefly up to mortgage lenders to help homeowners, "not the duty of government to bail out and reward those who act irresponsibly, whether they are big banks or small borrowers."

He did say then that he would consider temporary federal assistance for homeowners, but he offered no specifics and did not address any of the ideas for help being considered by his congressional colleagues.

Last month's tough-love message was reinforced by McCain's chief economic adviser, Doug Holtz-Eakin, who told reporters that "as harsh as it may sound, [foreclosure] may be an appropriate outcome in some cases."

McCain's Democratic opponents pounced after that speech. New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton compared him to Herbert Hoover.

Now, however, in offering federal guarantees for new mortgages and assistance to homeowners, McCain is essentially embracing what many Democrats on Capitol Hill have been demanding.

McCain's advisers described his plan as more focused on the homeowner than the Democratic plans, which they said focused too much on the lender.

In fact, however, the legislation offered by the Democratic leaders of the key Senate and House committees requires that lenders agree to cut the loan principal owed by homeowners to 85 percent of the homes' current market value before they could qualify for federal loan guarantees.

In a break with the Bush administration, McCain's advisers acknowledged that his plan went beyond the administration's Hope Now program.

That plan is voluntary and encourages lenders to modify loans or freeze mortgage rates for two to five years. But these reworks often leave in place loan values that are greater than the current value of a home.

Andrew Jakabovics, a housing expert at the liberal Center for American Progress, called McCain's plan "a huge step from where he was two weeks ago," but he said he wondered about the specifics of McCain's plan, such as who would be labeled "deserving."

McCain also said that the Justice Department should investigate potential criminal activities, such as fraud, in the mortgage lending and securitization industry.