Real-estate counseling: Solid Ground looking for a few good volunteers

When I called Donna Dziak, manager of housing counseling programs at the Seattle nonprofit agency Solid Ground, to get more information about tomorrow’s mortgage-workout session (scroll down to the third item) in SeaTac. We quickly went off on tangents.

Among them was this gem: Solid Ground is so swamped with clients that it can’t take on any new ones. It doesn’t have the money — and doesn’t anticipate getting it — to hire any more housing counselors. A quarter to a third of the agency’s budget is from private sources, including fundraisers and donations, but the rest comes from federal, state and local governments.

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development cut Solid Ground’s contract $16,000 from last year, Dziak said, and the agency expects a cut in its funding from King County, which is $90 million in the hole.

From Seattle, the agency will receive what it did last year plus 2.5 percent for a cost-of-living adjustment. It also will get a small amount of money from the state through a program that ends in June.

But that money won’t make up the gap, which comes as more and more homeowners are looking for help.

..Real Full Article

http://blog.seattletimes.nwsource.com/therealestatedeal/2008/10/housing_help_solid_ground_look.html