D.C. Region's Foreclosure Rate Soars

David Robertson, the council's executive director, said the foreclosure crisis demands that local governments, businesses and nonprofit groups respond in concert as they did after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

Fairfax Board of Supervisors Chairman Gerald E. Connolly (D) agreed. "If we can come up with a concentrated effort to address this problem, I think we have a better chance of making a positive impact," he said.

At a regional foreclosure summit today, the Nonprofit Roundtable of Greater Washington will present a report that highlights the work of agencies on the front lines of the crisis. Many reported being inundated with families facing foreclosure or having been ordered from their homes.

The Latino Economic Development Corp., a District-based nonprofit organization, opened a Wheaton office in March to provide foreclosure counseling.

"We anticipated having just 60 cases for the entire year, and within four weeks we had 130 cases," Executive Director Manny Hidalgo said. "Not everybody's going to be able to rework their mortgage or restructure their loan, but we try to save as many as we can."

United Communities Against Poverty in Prince George's provided mortgage help to 21 families in 2006. That number rose to 44 last year, and this year the group has served 158, program manager Mary Clark said.

The story is the same in Northern Virginia, where Reston Interfaith is training its social workers to provide mortgage counseling.

The Council of Governments' emergency fund will help groups such as these. Freddie Mac, the McLean-based mortgage company, is donating $175,000 to the fund. The Freddie Mac Foundation is giving $100,000, foundation Chairman Ralph F. Boyd Jr. said.

"Foreclosure obviously puts everybody at risk," Boyd said. "It puts families at risk, it puts neighborhoods at risk, communities at risk, the lenders at risk."