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The U.S. Senate has passed an amendment that will protect tenants of repo houses from being evicted. The amendment, Protecting Tenants at Foreclosure Act is part of the housing law, Help Families Save Their Homes Act of 2009.

Both Senators Kirsten Gillibrand and John Kerry have proposed the amendment which would give renters and families in the United States not less than 90 days to transfer to another home if they are leasing in repo homes.

The amendment states that renters in any residential real property or dwelling with a rent should be allowed to stay in foreclosed homes until the existing lease expires. The amendment also points out that if the buyer of repossessed homes plans to use the house as his primary residence then he could terminate the lease. However, renters must be given a 90-day notice to leave or vacate the property.

Additionally, renters with a lease that can be terminated anytime under state law or those without a lease have also the right to be given a 90-day notice to leave or vacate the property.

According to Gillibrand, over 30,000 tenants of repo properties in New York have not violated any terms of their lease and pay their rent regularly without fail. But she noted that these good paying tenants do not have any right when lending institutions or banks repossess the houses they are renting.

She added that families who have no means to quickly find temporary places to live or transfer into another housing unit were unceremoniously kicked out of their rental homes because their landlords reneged on their financial obligations.

On his part, Kerry claimed that tenants are the victims of foreclosure property crisis. He believed that renters who have not done anything wrong should not be evicted without proper notice and should be given enough time to find alternative living arrangements.

Many tenants are unaware that the houses they are renting are about to be repossessed because landlords kept them in the dark about their foreclosure problem. Some states have laws that give tenants in repo houses limited notice that they are about to be evicted.

The amendment will be of great benefit to low-income tenants who lease houses subject to foreclosure and who lack the means necessary to immediately relocate on a short notice.

Other senators who co-sponsored the amendment that protects tenants of repo homes are Harry Reid, Chris Dodd, Edward Kennedy, Barbara Boxer, Richard Durbin and Jeff Merkley.

A rising number of renters across the country have been made homeless because of the sudden inclusion of their rental homes in foreclosure listings. Oftentimes, they do not know their units have been foreclosed until they are evicted from their units.

Based on data from the National Low Income Housing Coalition (NLIHC), an estimated 40 percent of families occupying repo homes are renters. While the percentage affected is almost half of all occupants, there are no regulatory protections for tenants affected by foreclosure listings in most states. As more and more distress homes are added to foreclosure listings, more and more renters are forced out of dwellings, oftentimes into shelters. Most often also, single mothers with young children are the ones being affected.

In Manassas, Virginia, the homeless advocacy organization SERVE has seen a rapid rise in tenants needing immediate shelter since the last months of 2008. Another shelter in the state has been preparing for an expected influx of low-income families that have been evicted from rental homes added to foreclosure listings.

Linda Couch, deputy director of the NLIHC, said many renters keep up with their payments and their contract requirements. But when they are notified that their units have been included in foreclosure listings, they are not given the help they need and deserve. Other renters are in worse situations because their security deposits and advance payments can not be returned by their landlords because they no longer have the money.

The case of Maria Stephens illustrates the difficult situations of renters caught in the swirl of foreclosure auction and job loss. Stephens and her three young boys lived for seven months in 2008 in a small room in a shelter in Virginia after a series of misfortunes. Her rental home was suddenly foreclosed, her second rental was sold and finally her job was taken away. Stephens related how she struggled as she had a newborn then and two other children under seven.

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development is working out a solution to the problem of tenants, according to the department’s mortgage finance adviser Bill Apgar. He said President Obama’s budget proposal for 2010 includes a funding of $1 billion for a trust fund that would develop and preserve low-income housing. Also included is a voucher scheme that would enable families to keep their homes from a foreclosed situation.

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There is a big possibility that the price of bailout for banks will be greater compared to the allotted $700 billion because banks do not have enough resources to mend their problems. Therefore support for companies in financial services spent by the government can eventually go up to the trillions. This is bad news also for those experiencing the foreclosure crisis.

The half portion of the $700 billion to assist banks has been used in obtaining preferred portions of banks in jeopardy because of the foreclosure crisis. A portion of the remaining $350 billion can be utilized to buy bad assets from the bank’s books and keep them in what is termed as the “aggregator bank”.

Therefore, the total working capital needed by the government would more or less be $4 trillion, according to Simon Johnson of the Peterson Institute for International Economics. The government should give more sets of funds to banks since they are too vulnerable in terms of losses. It is also necessary to get do away with several toxic assets which put a burden on financial bodies before giving them a chance to recuperate.

It is estimated that the remaining cost for taxpayers for an expanded bailout can be between 5 percent and 10 percent of the GDP, or about $1 trillion to $2 trillion.

But pleas for a clear statement from the U.S. government have amplified in the past few weeks due to the free falling of bank reserves and the rising foreclosure problem. The index of KBW Bank has plummeted 35 percent in January following a 50 percent drop last year, as investors are anxious that coercing the government on nationalizing several banks and in the process, eliminate shareholders, might actually happen. Both the shares of top banks like Citigroup and Bank of America have been mostly hit, which further intensifies the foreclosure problem.

The government will not allow vital institutions go down as the former can obtain bank warrants acquiring help that could equate towards common shares the moment the government advertises these. Furthermore, the government can employ private equity supervisors to manage the properties the government obtains and eventually sell these when the right time comes.

The plans mentioned should permit the Treasury Department to obtain some benefits for taxpayers as soon as the economic downfall comes to an end after which, the banking industry and foreclosure crisis begin to improve.

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke declared that the remaining $350 billion from the much-criticized Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), some of which is supposed to go to alleviating foreclosures, is necessary to keep financial institutions afloat. The announcement came just as President-elect Barrack Obama lobbied for the remaining half fund to be quickly released by Congress.

The law department of Baltimore is coordinating with eighteen other cities in the country in efforts to stop the foreclosure crisis. Through litigation, the department hopes to help homeowners with mortgage related concerns.

It has been six months since lenders have implemented modifications to ease the burden of homeowners on mortgage payment. In spite of this, a significant number of borrowers is still on the verge of losing their property. The negative outcome has led skeptics into thinking that government efforts to stop the housing crisis are merely put to waste. The problem is not effectively addressed and the money allotted for foreclosure prevention is just blown.

Adjustable Rate Mortgages (ARMs) are time bombs threatening to explode in the already devastated economy. By mid-2009, a new wave of ARMs will reset.

There will be an expected three million failed mortgages this year and 8,500 homes threatened for foreclosure per day. This is despite the 300 billion dollars allotted for the Bush administration?s Hope for Homeowners program. The scheme which has been in effect since last October 1 has gotten only 42 applications. In fact, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development is expecting only 20,000 applicants for loan modifications come next autumn.

For the period of July to September, there are over 2,700 Americans losing their homes to foreclosure each day. Such a huge number will make one think if the government is really doing anything to end the foreclosure crisis.