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Summary

Ohio’s Mortgage Payment Assistance program for Hardest Hit Fund (HHF) applicants fully subsidized recipients' monthly mortgage payments for up to 18 months while they searched for jobs, targeting unemployed homeowners who were at risk of or in foreclosure due to financial hardship and being delinquent on their mortgage.

Ohio’s Mortgage Payment Assistance program for Hardest Hit Fund (HHF) applicants fully subsidized recipients' monthly mortgage payments for up to 18 months while they searched for jobs, targeting unemployed homeowners who were at risk of or in foreclosure due to financial hardship and being delinquent on their mortgage. Participants had to report their employment status to the state housing finance agency. Those who became employed before reaching the maximum duration of benefits received at least two months of assistance. In Ohio’s MPA program, re-employed participants whose new earnings were 10 percent or more below their prior earnings and had a mortgage payment debt to income ratio of 31 percent or higher, continued to receive assistance up to the maximum benefit duration. The Mortgage Assistance Payment program was commonly paired with a second HHF program that provided assistance to make delinquent mortgages current.

The study was conducted statewide in Ohio.

101026-Study of Hardest Hit
Populations and employment barriers: Unemployed

Effectiveness rating and effect by outcome domain

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Outcome domain Term Effectiveness rating Effect in 2024 dollars and percentages Effect in standard deviations Sample size
Increase earnings Short-term Little evidence to assess support $0 per year 0.000 3038
Long-term Supported favorable $36 per year 0.001 3038
Very long-term No evidence to assess support
Increase employment Short-term Little evidence to assess support 0% (in percentage points) 0.000 0
Long-term Little evidence to assess support 0% (in percentage points) 0.000 0
Very long-term No evidence to assess support
Decrease benefit receipt Short-term No evidence to assess support
Long-term No evidence to assess support
Very long-term No evidence to assess support
Increase education and training All measurement periods No evidence to assess support
* This intervention was assessed as supported for this domain, meaning it achieved one or more statistically significant, favorable effects. However, the intervention has an average effect size that is unfavorable because the average includes all effects in this domain - both statistically significant and favorable effects and statistically insignificant but unfavorable effects.

Effectiveness rating key:

  • Well-supported Well-supported   
  • Supported  Supported   
  • Not supported  Not supported   
  • Mixed support  Mixed support   
  • Insufficient evidence  Insufficient evidence   
  • No evidence  No evidence
Effectiveness rating terms?

Studies of this intervention

Study quality rating Study counts per rating
Moderate Moderate 1
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Implementation details

Dates covered by study

The study time period covered September 2010 through December 2015 using administrative data.

Organizations implementing intervention

The Ohio Housing Finance Agency implemented the program statewide.

Populations served

The HHF Ohio Mortgage Payment Assistance program focused on unemployed individuals who applied for or received mortgage payment assistance within two quarters of their initial unemployment claim. These individuals had an average annual income of about 28 percent of the area median income.

Description of services implemented

Participants had to report their employment status to the state housing finance agency. Those who became employed before reaching the maximum duration of benefits received at least two months of assistance. In Ohio’s MPA program, re-employed participants whose new earnings were 10 percent or more below their prior earnings and had a mortgage payment debt to income ratio of 31 percent or higher, continued to receive assistance up to the maximum benefit duration. The Mortgage Assistance Payment program was commonly paired with a second HHF program that provided assistance to make delinquent mortgages current.

Service intensity

The program provided up to 18 months of mortgage payment assistance.

Comparison conditions

The comparison group was unemployed applicants for Hardest Hit Fund assistance in Ohio who were eligible for but not did not receive Mortgage Payment Assistance and did not receive other types of assistance from HHF programs. These were typically applicants who completed the first stage of the application process and were deemed eligible but then failed to complete the subsequent steps of the application process.

Partnerships

No partners for implementing the program were identified.

Staffing

The program was administered by staff at the Ohio Housing Finance Agency. 

Fidelity measures

No measures of program fidelity were indicated in the study.

Funding source

Ohio’s Mortgage Payment Assistance program was funded as part of the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Hardest Hit Fund (HHF) program. The HHF was funded as part of the Troubled Asset Relief Program’s (TARP) Making Home Affordable Program.

The information contained here reflects how the intervention was implemented at the time of the evaluation.

Local context

The program was implemented statewide in Ohio.

Characteristics of research participants
Black or African American
18%
White
78%
Unknown, not reported, or other
2%
Hispanic or Latino of any race
3%

The race and ethnicity categories may sum to more than 100 percent if the authors reported race and ethnicity separately; in these cases, we report the category White, rather than White, not Hispanic.

State(s) where implemented

AL AK AZ AR CA CO CT DE DC FL GA HI ID IL IN IA KS KY LA ME MD MA MI MN MS MO MT NE NV NH NJ NM NY NC ND OH OK OR PA RI SC SD TN TX UT VT VA WA WV WI WY Canada

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