A major owner of distressed mortgages has arranged with a nonprofit counseling center in Ontario to screen its delinquent clients in Riverside and San Bernardino counties to see if their homes can be saved from foreclosure with help from the Obama administration's mortgage refinancing and modification program.

The Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corp, called Freddie Mac, a government-sponsored investor in home mortgages, selected the Neighborhood Partnership Housing Services in Ontario as one of six centers nationwide that will do outreach and foreclosure prevention counseling for homeowners with Freddie Mac-owned loans, said spokesman Brad German.

Inland Southern California was chosen because of its high concentration of foreclosures, said German. The other centers are in Phoenix, Chicago and the Washington, D.C., suburbs.

Jed Davis, chief executive of the Neighborhood Partnership Housing Services, said Freddie Mac's outreach program, which was launched in Ontario last week, will be extended to other parts of the country if it is successful.

Davis said the Ontario office, 320 West G St., received a $150,000 one-year grant from Freddie Mac to pay the salaries of two foreclosure counselors who will provide in-person counseling for Freddie Mac borrowers and for other program costs such as marketing.

He said last week Neighborhood Partnership and Freddie Mac jointly sent letters to 917 homeowners in Riverside and San Bernardino counties who have Freddie Mac loans and are in the foreclosure process, having received notice of default.

Davis said he expects over the next 12 months Freddie Mac will supply his office with the names and addresses of more candidates for mortgage modification. He did not know the total number of delinquent mortgages that Freddie Mac holds in Inland Southern California.

One of Davis's concerns, he said, is that Freddie Mac borrowers who receive letters from his office may discard them along with the flood of mail routinely sent from for-profit mortgage modification companies.

Unlike the for-profit operations, Neighborhood Partnership Housing Services is certified by the federal government to provide foreclosure counseling and does not charge a fee, Davis said.

Freddie Mac said Neighborhood Partnership Housing Services and the other selected nonprofit organizations will work with Home Retention Services, a wholly owned subsidiary of Stewart Lender Services Inc., to help borrowers connect with their mortgage servicers.

Freddie Mac said Neighborhood Housing Partnership Housing Services "will provide free, confidential holistic counseling to borrowers who have been discouraged or frustrated by the workout process. Holistic counseling will address other debt and credit issues that could affect the borrower's ability to make payments on their mortgage even after it is modified."

A homeowner who wants to know if his mortgage is owned by Freddie Mac can check the Freddie Mac website: Freddiemac.com/my mortgage

Davis said although Neighborhood Partnership Housing Services will negotiate a loan modification with loan servicers on a borrower's behalf, it is important that the borrower gather the financial records needed to determine eligibility. Information about the required paperwork can be found online at NPHScounseling.org

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