Much-admired city initiative saves 1,400 homes from foreclosure

Deserie Jones-Wright had been caring for her youngest son, who was sick with meningitis, and she was struggling with the mortgage payments, on her West Oak Lane house, which had jumped from $675 to $975.

Last August, about nine years after she bought her house for $62,600, the former Philadelphia police officer was two days late with the payment, and the mortgage company foreclosed, she said.

"I almost lost my mind," said Jones-Wright, who has been on disability since 1995.

Yesterday, Jones-Wright told her story to about 150 people at a City Hall celebration for the first anniversary of the Residential Mortgage Foreclosure Diversion Pilot Program.

Because of this program, Jones-Wright was fortunate.

According to statistics released by city officials at the celebration showing the program's impact, she is among 1,400 Philadelphians who kept their homes through the the program, run by the First Judicial District of Pennsylvania.

With the program's assistance, her mortgage payment dropped to less than $600 a month.

Jeff Jubelirer, a First Judicial District spokesman, said that more than 5,700 Philadelphia homeowners have participated in the program. Of those, the homes of about 1,400 have been saved from a sheriff's sale, and 700 other owners have been able to postpone sales, said Judge Annette Rizzo, who is in charge of the program.

"Folks who haven't worked together before . . . are wading in together and getting things done," said Pamela Dembe, president of the Court of Common Pleas.

Paul Chrystie, spokesman for the Philadelphia Office of Housing and Community Development, said that the program has received widespread attention.

"This really is a national model," he said. "When you look at what other places are copying, they're copying us."

Boston and Pittsburgh have implemented similar models, Jubelirer said in a news release.

The program is unique because it mandates that lenders not foreclose on properties until they have a conciliation conference, Chrystie said.

D. Webster Keogh, a judge in Philadelphia's trial division, credited "relentless" outreach by public-interest groups.

He cited a "change in the attitude and posture of opposing attorneys" that "allowed them to take their litigation gloves off."

"They were literally helping to save lives," Keogh said.

"Even if we saved one house, it's a success as far as I'm concerned," said the state's chief justice, Ronald Castille.