Touting mortgage effort, Bush to visit area counseling firm
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS • MARCH 27, 2008
NEWARK — Joel Greenberg hopes President Bush continues to aid the growing numbers
of homeowners squeezed by their mortgages.
On Friday, he'll get the chance to tell him that in person when Bush visits Greenberg's debt-counseling
agency in central New Jersey.
"I'm obviously thrilled to see that the president has taken this cause up and has been speaking since
December about the Hope Now hot line (888-995-HOPE)," said Greenberg, president of Novadebt, whose
counselors have seen a fivefold increase in calls over the past two years, much of them on mortgage
problems.
Hope Now is a mortgage industry group organized by the Bush administration to coordinate a response to
the mortgage crisis. This month, it reported that more than 1 million homeowners had received repayment
plans or loan modifications since July that will allow them to remain in their homes.
Based in Freehold Township, Novadebt is a
nonprofit company that offers free and low-cost
services, including counseling, education and
debt management, to people in financial crises
due to mortgages, credit card debt, or possible
bankruptcies.
Novadebt, which has clients nationwide, is now
getting 10,000 to 11,000 calls a month, up from
2,000 to 3,000 just two years ago, Greenberg
said.
"The largest increase, by far, is in the area of
housing, mortgage defaults," he said.
"We are facing an enormous crisis. It is getting
ugly," Greenberg said.
The mortgage crisis that is affecting millions has
spread from borrowers whose low teaser rates
jumped, to those with conventional loans caught in a market in which home values are eroding. Novadebt
has a broad view of the situation; with seven offices in five states — California, New Jersey, New York,
North Carolina and Texas — it oversees debt-management plans for 20,000 clients.
Founded in 1991 by Greenberg with just one other full-time employee, he now considers the company a
"medium-sized" debt counselor with 210 workers, including over 100 counselors.
"We are far from the largest," Greenberg said.