• Provide at least $28 million a year in grants to local governments to help address vacant property challenges;

• Provide at least $13 million a year for housing counseling that will help thousands of struggling homeowners to save their homes and many more to find other alternatives to foreclosure; and

• Create a fast track foreclosure process that will allow banks to reduce the time it takes to foreclose on a certified vacant property by 18 months—so those properties won’t be a burden on local governments and can be returned to productive use much more quickly.

We need your help as soon as possible to get this bill passed and help communities recover from the foreclosure crisis. Please let Courtney Eccles know if you can sign on to support the bill ASAP at ceccles@woodstockinst.org or 312-368-0310.

The funding for these services will come from new foreclosure filing fees. Big banks (with a large number of foreclosure filings) will pay $500 per filing, while smaller banks and credit unions with fewer filings will pay lower fees. This fact sheet describes the bill in more detail or you can read the full text here.

Community banks, credit unions and thrifts helped to draft the legislation and are working with us to get it passed. We hope you will add your name to the list of supporting organizations as soon as possible today. To sign on as a proponent, please contact Courtney Eccles at ceccles@woodstockinst.org or 312.368.0310.

In addition to adding your organization’s name as a proponent of the legislation, please contact your state representative and state senator and ask them to support SB16 H.A. 8. The fact sheet provides additional talking points.

Thank you for all your good work!