Report delivers detailed breakdowns of 17 client management systems, helping housing counselor agencies find the best fit for their needs

A new, comprehensive guide to the Client Management Systems (CMSs) approved by HUD has just been released by Housing Action Illinois, a statewide coalition of 150 organizations working to protect and expand affordable housing, in partnership with Neighborhood Housing Services of Chicago (NHS).

The resource guide, which is available for free online, assesses the 17 different publicly available CMSs approved by HUD for use by housing counseling agencies. Agencies rely on CMSs to manage their work with clients and track their outcomes as they help households seeking to make informed home purchase or rental decisions, repair credit, and budget for the future. Figuring out which system is best for an agency can be difficult, especially since there has been no side-by-side comparison of the CMSs until now.

“This guide is a first of its kind,” says Sharon Legenza, Executive Director of Housing Action Illinois. “Trying to compare these complicated systems can be daunting to a housing counseling organization, especially since many don’t have an IT department to help evaluate a new system. It’s important for agencies to have access to a breakdown of what the different systems offer, which can help them make the best decision for their own organization.”

Barbara Waymire, head of C.E.F.S. Economic Opportunity Corporation in Effingham, was glad to find that the guide narrowed her search. “Being a small agency with limited IT resources, I especially like the ‘Best Suited For’ comparison,” she shares. “It allowed me to review just those suited to our needs. Product cost comparison was made easy with this format.”

Lisa Madigan, Illinois Attorney General, is proud to have supported the development of the guide. “It’s an invaluable tool for housing counseling agencies trying to figure out what system is best for them,” she says. The creation of the guide was made possible through a National Foreclosure Settlement Award made by the Illinois Attorney General’s office.

“Even just the research conducted to identify the 17 CMSs that have been updated to meet HUD’s reporting standards is invaluable,” states Derek Adkisson, Director of Finance and Operations at South Suburban Housing Center in Homewood, Illinois. After going through the available CMSs to identify those that are both publicly available and HUD-approved, Housing Action Illinois and NHS conducted interviews and product demonstrations with each of the CMS developers to assess the systems and create an overview of each. This helps users learn at a glance which CMSs might not be well suited for their programming, and which they might want to investigate further.

The guide is available in its entirety online, and Housing Action Illinois will be hosting a webinar on July 20 to help agencies understand and use the resource, as well as conducting one-on-one training with interested agencies.

Sponsored by Housing Action Illinois

May 27- 29, 2014
8:30 am to 4:00 pm

Training Location:

71 S. Wacker Drive. 29th floor
Chicago, IL 60606

You must bring photo identification to access to the building.

PLEASE RSVP with Bibian Guevara by Tuesday, May 20

bibian@housingactionil.org

Seating is limited. The event may fill up prior to deadline.

Fee: $40 for HAI members – $80 for non-members

Send check/money order to:

HOUSING ACTION ILLINOIS
11 East Adams Street, Suite 1601
Chicago, IL 60603

(Include Financial training in memo line)

Parking, travel and lodging are on your own.

The U.S. Treasury requires servicers to monitor compliance with fair lending laws, but does not do an assessment as to which servicers are meeting this requirement.  Analyses of data done in other states give indications that default servicing outcomes may be racially skewed.  Hope Fair Housing Center (hopefair.org) plans to conduct a survey to determine if these discriminatory practices also happened in Illinois.

Hope Fair Housing Center needs your agency’s counseling data to conduct this study.

Please join Hope Fair Housing Center and Housing Action Illinois for a webinar on Thursday, April 10 at 3:00 PM to discuss the study and how your counseling statistics could help to create new policies and procedures to protect homeowners.

HOPE Fair Housing Center recognizes that there is a wealth of information in housing counseling data that hasn’t fully been analyzed by the responsible agencies regarding the housing crisis and default outcomes, and that by doing its own statewide analysis, HOPE can spur the conversation on the federal level among agencies charged with fair lending oversight who have not done their own analyses.

Title:    Housing Counseling Webinar: Is Discriminatory Default Servicing a Factor in Homeowner Default Outcomes?
Date:    Thursday, April 10, 2014
Time:    3:00 PM – 4:00PM CDT

After registering you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the Webinar.

System Requirements

PC-based attendees
Required: Windows® 8, 7, Vista, XP or 2003 Server
Mac®-based attendees
Required: Mac OS® X 10.6 or newer
Mobile attendees
Required: iPhone®, iPad®, Android™ phone or Android tablet

ROUNDTABLE DISCUSSION: Foreclosure Prevention Best Practices Between Housing Counselors and Servicers

The Chicago Community Trust
225 N Michigan Ave. Suite 2200, Chicago IL 60601
April 29, 2014 from 1:30 – 4:00pm

Featured Panelists:

• Cesar Escovar, Housing Counselor- North Side Community Federal Credit Union
• Erica Zepeda, Housing Counselor-Greater Southwest Development Corporation
• Mark Seifert, Vice President Community Relations-Ocwen Financial Corporation
• John Guerra, Community Outreach Consultant-Wells Fargo Home Mortgage

The panel will be followed by a moderated discussion based on counselor’s questions and concerns.

PLEASE RSVP to Bibian Guevara by Tuesday, April 15, 2014 to bibian@housingactionil.org

In your RSVP please include the number of years you’ve been a foreclosure prevention counselor, and the number one issue facing you as a housing counselor.

SPACE IS LIMITED: Maximum 2 Counselors per Organization

If you are an executive director and are thinking about moving on in the near future, this course is for you. The training places the issue of leadership transitions firmly in the context of organization growth and change. If you want to make sure that the organization which you have worked so hard to build survives and prospers after you leave, this class will give you a lot to think about, as well as some practical tools that you could put to work right now.

If you are a board member of an organization which might experience a leadership change in the future, this course is for you as well, because you will be expected to manage that transition. One of the most important responsibilities of a board is to recruit and hire the executive director – and to support that person through the transition process.

Sponsored by Housing Action Illinois

Date and Time:

April 1 and 2, 2014
8:00 a.m. – 3:30 p.m.

Training Location:

Ralph H. Metcalfe Federal Office Building
77 West Jackson Blvd. Room 326
Chicago, IL 60604

(You must bring photo identification to access to the building.)

Registration:

Click here to register!

The registration deadline is March 21.

Seating is limited. The event may fill up prior to deadline.

Fee: $25 for HAI members – $50 for non-members

Send check/money order to:

HOUSING ACTION ILLINOIS
11 East Adams Street, Suite 1601
Chicago, IL 60603

(Include ML312 in memo line)

Parking, travel and lodging are on your own.

LEARN HOW TO:

• Conduct a full assessment of a foreclosure
• Read and understand a docket
• Differentiate the types of property estimates used in court
• Learn GDARTZ
  • G -Government/GSE
  • D – Docket
  • A – Assessor
  • R – Recorder of Deeds
  • T – Treasurer
  • Z – Zillow

WHEN: March 25, 2014 from 10:00 a.m. to 11:30 a.m.

WHERE: Legal Assistance Foundation, 120 S LaSalle St. 10th Floor, Chicago

PLEASE RSVP to Bibian Guevara by Friday, March 21, 2014 at bibian@housingactionil.org

SPACE IS LIMITED: Maximum 2 Counselors per Organization

Click here to download the webinar materials.