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For foreclosure-prevention help, just dial 215-334-HOME

In today's double-jeopardy, shark-eat-homeowner world, foreclosure-threatened victims of predatory lenders are bombarded by aggressive advertising from even more predatory, phony middlemen, promising to renegotiate their oppressive mortgages and offer sweetheart deals for them.

In today's double-jeopardy, shark-eat-homeowner world, foreclosure-threatened victims of predatory lenders are bombarded by aggressive advertising from even more predatory, phony middlemen, promising to renegotiate their oppressive mortgages and offer sweetheart deals for them.

Those deals never materialize. Panicked homeowners end up throwing good money after bad.

That's one of many reasons why mayoral adviser Terry Gillen wishes that more Philadelphians knew about the city's legally mandated Foreclosure Prevention Court, in which lenders cannot foreclose on a house until they sit down with borrowers and their housing counselors and/or lawyers, and try to modify mortgages so that homeowners can remain in their homes.

The foreclosure-prevention program's lawyers and counselors charge nothing, and, unlike the heavily advertised hype artists, they have saved hundreds of homes.

"All you have to do is call our Save Your Home Philly Hotline - 215-334-HOME - and a Community Legal Services lawyer will get you into the program," Gillen said.

Although a casual observer wouldn't know it from watching the jam-packed foreclosure-prevention program in City Hall Courtroom 676 every Thursday, Gillen thinks that it could double the 3,150 homeowners it served in its first six months if Community Legal Services attorneys who knock on the doors of foreclosure-threatened homeowners could reach people before they are so close to losing their houses.

"I think we're knocking on the door too late," Gillen said. "By the time someone is in line for the sheriff's sale, they are pretty far gone and in panic. I'd love to have a list of people who have missed one or two payments. We could save a lot more homes that way."

Meanwhile, veteran nonprofit housing counselors like Pam Kennebrew, of the Philadelphia Unemployment Project, have as much caseload as they can handle. They work to save the homes of endangered clients like Robert and Rochelle Bibbs, who were among the first homeowners to take advantage of the foreclosure-prevention program when the court opened last June.

When they got married, in 2004, Rochelle's father gave them the deed to the home in which she had grown, a three-bedroom rowhouse on Clearview Street near E. Pleasant, in Mount Airy, that was in need of extensive repair.

They took out a $76,000 adjustable-rate mortgage to rebuild the crumbling foundation walls, replace the roof, heating system and plumbing, rewire the entire house, renovate the deteriorated kitchen and pay off old tax liens on the property.

The monthly mortgage payment of $640 was affordable because Bibbs had worked for SEPTA's Railroad Division for 16 years as a yard-supply clerk.

But he was driving a forklift in February 2006 when one of the wheels broke off at the axle. Bibbs suffered neck and shoulder injuries that required surgery, left him unable to do his SEPTA job and that still have not fully healed.

His wife, a former Blue Cross employee, had been disabled by neurological damage in 2001.

While Bibbs battled the forklift manufacturer in court to get a disability settlement, his adjustable-rate-mortgage payments quickly rose from $640 to $810 to $955.

"We fell a year behind in our payments," Bibbs said. "We were definitely going to be foreclosed. I was totally overwhelmed and very depressed about what could happen, especially having two young children. I've seen folks who lost everything. I am a man of faith, but I was fearful that we would wind up out on the street."

To Bibbs' credit, Kennebrew said, he responded to the city's letter about the foreclosure-prevention program. Many threatened homeowners, she said, are so stressed by a debt that they can't pay and by impending foreclosure, that they stop responding to mortgage-related mail, or even opening it.

"They don't know what to do, so they do nothing," she said. "I think that's the worst thing that can happen. This program is getting people into the system who may not have sought out a housing counselor before."

Bibbs is glad he responded. His mortgage was modified to a 30-year, fixed-interest rate of 6.4 percent - almost half his previous rate - with a monthly payment of $697. The partial disability settlement he has received will allow him to keep up with payments.

"The mortgage company had been really unreasonable," Kennebrew said. "We just kept at it until we wore them down."

"Pam was great, and so was our Community Legal Services lawyer, Peter Schneider," Bibbs said. "They were with us every step of the way. They saved our home."