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Financial Services Law Insights and Observations

Special Inspector General for TARP Issues Report on "Hardest Hit Fund"

Federal Issues Mortgages TARP

Federal Issues

On January 12, the Special Inspector General for the Troubled Asset Relief Program (SIGTARP) announced the release of its report on TARP’s “Hardest Hit Fund” (HHF). Created in 2010, the HHF provides a temporary safety net to help save the homes of unemployed and underemployed Americans in 19 states deemed to be the hardest-hit areas of the country. Among other things, the report noted that a majority of the more than 160,000 people denied funds through the program earned less than $30,000. The report notes that SIGTARP is unable to determine why denial rates for homeowners making less than $30,000 are so high, in part, because state agencies' records are non-existent, missing, or incomplete. Indeed, according to the report, some state agencies were unable to provide “even basic aggregate information about why homeowners were denied, let alone a specific reason for each person turned away.” The report emphasized, among other things, the need for all such records-related deficiencies be “immediately remedied.” The report also recommended that state agencies “remove unnecessary restrictions for participation in the program.”