By Karamagi Rujumba, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Michel Sauret/Post-Gazette

At this time last year, Brian and Patricia Boring were among the growing number of homeowners who faced the possibility of losing their house through a mortgage foreclosure.

The parents of a teenage daughter and a son who is now a college sophomore, the Borings have lived for about 14 years in a three-bedroom, two-story house in Springdale Borough. They worried that foreclosure would be the first step in a downward financial spiral that would threaten their family's foundation.

It was a sobering reality, said Mr. Boring, 47, and "[an] experience that made us realize we needed help."

It came in the form of a pink sheet enclosed with their foreclosure notice, informing them about an Allegheny County program that could prevent foreclosure by providing access to credit counselors and, if necessary, attorneys to assist with renegotiating the terms of their mortgage.

The pink sheet included the hotline number for the county's Home Mortgage Foreclosure Program, which in its first year, has enabled 84 percent of people who enrolled-- and nearly 100 percent of those who adhered to its requirements -- to remain in their houses.

The hotline number is not public and isoffered only to homeowners who may qualify.

The program offers a 90-day suspension of court foreclosure proceedings to give homeowners time to negotiate with their mortgage lenders. To qualify, participants must own a home in the county and may seek assistance only on their primary residence.

A pastry chef who last worked at a country club, Mr. Boring said his family was quickly submerged by household utility bills and health expenses after he was laid off at the end of 2008.

"We were really desperate and we needed any help we could get," he said. "We were barely making it," on his federal unemployment compensation and his wife's income as a part-time administrative assistant at their church, he said.

The notion of being able to stave off foreclosure after six months of outstanding mortgage payments was hard to fathom, he said.

The program -- the brainchild of Sheriff William P. Mullen, Common Pleas Judge Joseph James and County Executive Dan Onorato -- offers counseling and other services to the 400 or so homeowners who receive foreclosure notices every month.

Mr. Boring said it has been a lifesaver, allowing his family to reduce a subprime mortgage interest rate by at least 5 percentage points and lock in that rate for five years.

In addition, Mr. Boring said, his family was able to renegotiate a new, lower mortgage payment that includes the outstanding payments and spreads them out over the life of the new loan.

When they proposed the program in October 2008, county officials said they modeled it after a similar initiative in Philadelphia to assist homeowners who are often confounded by foreclosure proceedings.

"What we are planning is a simple solution to a difficult problem," said Judge James, who then was president judge of Common Pleas Court.

With an estimated 4,000 foreclosures pending in the county at that time, Judge James appointed Judge Michael E. McCarthy to supervise the program, which was implemented by court order in December 2008.

Since then, 763 homeowners have applied to the program, although 113 of them later were dropped for failing to comply with its requirements, which include a court-supervised conference in which the judge can accept or deny an agreement between the homeowner and mortgage lender.

Of those who remained, 196 homeowners, or 30 percent, have kept their homes; 449 homeowners, or 69 percent, are working through the process. Only five homeowners, or less than 1 percent, lost their homes when they ended up in bankruptcy.

"That a majority of people in our program are still in their homes is a really positive thing, especially in this economic climate," county spokeswoman Megan Dardanell said. "It shows that the program is working, a good step for the first year."

The county's Department of Economic Development runs the program. Mr. Boring said its first step, the credit-counseling course, "gave us an understanding of how we could manage our finances in order to afford whatever mortgage payment we could work out."

Providing that financial education is the most important part of the process, said Dan Sullivan, a counselor with ACTION-Housing Inc., Downtown -- one of eight housing-services agencies that provide counseling for the program.

"Much of the time, most people don't even know their rights under the mortgage contracts they signed. That is a big part of the process because ultimately, they are the ones who have to renegotiate with their lender," Mr. Sullivan said.

"All we do is give them the education they need and a bit of breathing space to work out a deal," he said. "If they are committed and they do want to save their home, this program will help them."