Cleveland is ground zero for the home foreclosure crisis.

What they didn’t mention was that Audrey Sweet’s original lender was COUNTRYWIDE HOME LOANS.

http://www.myfoxcleveland.com/myfox/pages/News/Detail?contentId=4468022&version=7&locale=EN-US&layoutCode=TSTY&pageId=3.2.1CLEVELAND — George Goehl is executive director of a group called the National Training and Information Center (NTIC). Goehl traveled to Cleveland from Chicago on Wednesday because he says Cleveland is ground zero for the home foreclosure crisis.

NTIC is calling for major lenders to agree to a moratorium, where they will not increase monthly payments for holders of adjustable rate mortgages for two years.

“Our hope is that Countrywide and Wells Fargo will step up to the plate and quickly start a moratorium on ARM resets,” says Goehl.

At an event that took place in front of a foreclosed home on Cleveland’s east side, Audrey Sweet said, “I received a notice my mortgage payment would increase by $600 a month within the next 60 days.”

Sweet got involved with a consumer group here in Cleveland called ESOP and they helped her find a traditional lender who restructured her debt and allowed her to keep her home.

About her original mortgage lender Sweet says, “They forged documents, fudged numbers and made it look like I could afford something I would never be able to pay off.”

Members of the NTIC group held a banner that said 9,344 homes have fallen into foreclosure here in Cuyahoga County since the first of the year.   

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