Indiana resident and HOPE NOW Alliance participant Lori Ball remembers all too well what life was like for her family a few short months ago. In those months, Lori and her husband, Carey Ball, were at-risk of losing their home to foreclosure, and their only lifeline seemed to be a speech Lori heard President George W. Bush delivering at the time on her television set.
The speech reminded Lori that she and her husband now had access to the HOPE NOW Alliance—a national partnership made up of homeownership counseling providers, nonprofit agencies and mortgage servicing companies, who are working together to contact and save at-risk borrowers.
“We had received a letter from our mortgage company that basically outlined the program (HOPE NOW Alliance),” Lori remembers. “And then I remember listening to President Bush talk about it on TV. My husband made the phone call and actually set the wheels in motion for everything that has taken place.”
What has taken place since that night is simple: The Ball family is now part of history, and they have the HOPE NOW Alliance to thank for it.
President Bush and his administration learned the Balls had successfully utilized the HOPE NOW Alliance program to work out a loan modification with their lender, Wells Fargo. Last night, when President Bush delivered his last official State of the Union Address, Lori was sitting in the audience as the President and First Lady’s special guest. This time, the President was speaking about the HOPE NOW Alliance right in front of Lori as she sat amongst dignitaries.

“I thought I was going to be nervous,“Lori remembers. “But actually I was okay until I got to meet Mrs. Bush, their daughters, and then of course, the President himself. I extended my hand for a handshake, and he actually waived my hand away and gave me a hug. He was just very personable, warm, welcoming, and I thanked him very much for the HOPE NOW Alliance program.”
Ed Delgado, a senior vice president at Wells Fargo, says the Balls’ success story is a testament to what can happen when effective outreach programs encourage borrowers to call their loan servicers for help.
Delgado says there is a “widely publicized statistic” that says “greater than 50-percent of all loans that go to foreclosure sale” show no signs of the borrowers ever having direct contact with their lender or servicer.
Delgado attributes the Ball’s success to a letter that was sent out to customers facing loan distress in mid-to-late November. All in all, he believes the HOPE NOW Alliance is already working wonders and has the potential to do more.
“The Alliance, in total, has sent out over 490,000 letters, and that’s in November and December alone,” said Delgado. “We obviously expect those totals to increase in the coming months.”
Delgado says positive results are blooming from letters already sent.
“The response rate to this letter—and this is a key data point—has been 16-percent,” Delgado added. “Now that may not seem like a lot, but when you consider that we started at zero, and we’re now at 16, that’s a pretty good number of conversions or responses to the outreach letter.”
The Balls say they’ve benefited most from just knowing there’s help out there. Now, they want to spread the word to other distressed homeowners.
“I know many people that are in similar situations to ours,” Lori said. “They’ve either lost their home or had to sell their homes for less than what they’re worth. I’ve watched them struggle—family and friends—there was nothing to help them.”
Lori says she and her husband, at first, didn’t know who to call, and that’s a fear she wants to mitigate for other borrowers.
“Through all of this, my message is absolutely that the HOPE NOW Alliance helps, and there is help for you if you just make that phone call,” Lori concluded.
Borrowers can receive loss mitigation advice by calling the HOPE hotline at 1.888.995.HOPE.