There are literally dozens of bills on Capitol Hill that are aimed at relieving the mortgage and housing crisis. Some of them -- like FHA reform -- have been bouncing around for months with no final action.

On the House side right now, what could be the mother of all housing-relief bills is taking shape. Reportedly it will roll together reform of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, plus all sorts of new add-ons, including a $300 billion authorization for FHA to buy up and refinance delinquent mortgages held by private lenders.

Meanwhile, in the Senate, there's legislation to provide huge new tax benefits for home builders, new deductions for home owners who don't itemize, and tax incentives for buyers of foreclosed houses.

But the White House warned last Wednesday that it didn't like the way that bill was shaping up -- hinting at a possible veto if it passes in its current form.

With the total number of legislative days left before the Fall elections down to less than a month, can this Congress actually deliver housing market relief? That's a tough question, but it would speak volumes, if, during the worst foreclosure crisis since the Great Depression, the U.S. Congress could not gets its act together to produce much of anything.

Just about the only action spot in town at the moment appears to be at the Federal Housing Administration.

Last week, in a significant expansion of its efforts to reach out to troubled subprime and other borrowers, the FHA announced new criteria for its "FHASecure" program. Under the revised plan, even borrowers with seriously delinquent payment histories will get a shot at refinancing into an FHA fixed rate loan:

• Homeowners with adjustable-rate loans who have been late on two consecutive monthly payments during the prior 12 months, will now qualify for regular 3 percent equity FHA-insured mortgages.

• Owners who were late on three consecutive payments will qualify for FHA refinancing, but will need to have 10 percent minimum equity stakes.

These borrowers' current lenders will be allowed to help their clients by writing down principal balances to the 90 or 97 percent loan-to-value level required by FHA. Lenders will get a little "haircut" -- they'll have to forgive some debt, but it should a lot less than if they went to foreclosure.

FHA estimates that with the expanded reach of FHASecure, a total of 500,000 troubled families will refinance into fixed-rate loans by the end of 2008.

Bottom line: At least somebody in Washington is producing solutions. But so far, it hasn't been Congress.

Published: April 14, 2008

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Kenneth R. Harney writes an award-winning, nationally-syndicated column on housing and real estate from Washington, D.C. He is also managing director of the National Real Estate Development Center, a professional education company. He is a past member of the Federal Reserve Board's Consumer Advisory Council, a committee that by federal statute reviews all Fed actions on home mortgage, consmer credit and banking industry regulation. He served as a member of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development's Working Group on Computerized Loan Origination (CLO) systems, and is a member of the Editorial Board of the Fannie Mae Foundation's journal, Housing Policy Debate. He is the author of two books on mortgage finance and real estate.