The U.S. Department of Labor is taking significant steps to provide mortgage relief to unemployed homeowners, according to Faith Schwartz, executive director of the HOPE NOW Alliance.

The HOPE NOW Unemployment Committee has been working closely with the Labor Department and other administration agencies, including the Treasury, to develop a new online tool that verifies a homeowner’s unemployment income.

With this tool, unemployed homeowners with nine months of unemployment benefits can utilize their unemployment income to determine their eligibility for the government’s Making Home Affordable program (HAMP), Schwartz explained.

Schwartz called the new unemployment verification application “a highly useful tool for all parties,” in order to streamline the process for unemployed borrowers to reach a faster resolution. For a mortgage modification evaluation, the tool provides lenders, servicers, housing counselors, and homeowners with the correct amount of unemployment income and the duration of the payments.

The unemployment rate is now nearing double-digits, and many economists and virtually all mortgage trade groups argue that the industry’s efforts to keep people in their homes can’t keep pace with the rising number of jobless caught in the nation’s economic downturn.

“We will be dealing with a different kind of borrower,” John Courson, president of the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) told a conference group earlier this month, referring to the fact that a borrower’s employment status is now the biggest factor in whether or not they can make their mortgage payment.