New Research Shows How HAF Program Helped Stabilize Vulnerable Homeowners

On March 31, the Mortgage Bankers Association’s Research Institute for Housing America released Stabilizing Vulnerable Homeowners in a Time of Crisis: Insights from the Homeowner Assistance Fund. This is the first study to examine the characteristics and outcomes of homeowners who received assistance from the Homeowner Assistance Fund (HAF) and highlights the effectiveness of targeted assistance programs, such as HAF.

HAF is the $9.961 billion federal program to help households behind on their mortgages and other housing-related expenses (utilities, property taxes, partial claims, etc.) due to the impacts of Covid-19. The HAF program is overseen by the U.S. Treasury Department and administered by states, territories, and tribes. In 45 states, the state housing finance agency administers the program, or administered it in cases where the program has closed after distributing all available funds.

The special report provides a unique analysis across all state HAF programs, as well as an in-depth look at the HAF program administered by the Ohio Housing Finance Agency (OHFA). Highlights among the report’s key findings include:

• States created their HAF programs to target vulnerable homeowners, with the most funds distributed to homeowners with low incomes. Ninety percent of HAF funds nationwide were distributed to homeowners with incomes below the area median income.
• HAF subsidies flowed to geographic areas that were more distressed during the pandemic as measured by higher rates of unemployment and mortgage delinquency. Specifically, the researchers noted the share of HAF-assisted homeowners in a county positively correlated with the county’s 90+-day delinquency rate and its unemployment rate as of December 2020.
• The majority of homeowners served by the HAF program were assisted between 2022 and 2023, which the study points out coincided with a period of rising U.S. mortgage rates. The largest percentages of assistance (as of Q4 2024) paid for mortgage reinstatement (57.4 percent) and mortgage payment assistance (25.2 percent).
• In Ohio, more than 80 percent of HAF-assisted homeowners were making mortgage payments and, overall, less than three percent of assisted homeowners had evidence of starting the foreclosure process as of the end of 2023. Furthermore, homeowners receiving mortgage payment-related assistance from OHFA’s HAF program were more likely to still have evidence of an active first mortgage in that year than homeowners who received only forbearance from their mortgage servicer.
• In Ohio, the primary reason HAF applicants did not receive mortgage assistance was because they were ineligible due to a hardship that predated the Covid-19 pandemic or their home purchase.

Based on updated numbers available from the Treasury Department, the HAF program had delivered more than $7.9 billion in assistance to more than 610,000 struggling homeowners through September 2025. In total, state HAF programs have expended nearly 95 percent of the $9.31 billion they received through HAF. States have until September 30, 2026, to spend their HAF funds.

HAF administrators continue to assist underserved communities. Eighty-five percent of HAF recipients had incomes below the area median income (AMI), including 51 percent who earned less than 50 percent of AMI. Further, 40 percent of HAF beneficiaries identified as Black and 19 percent as Latino. (Source: U.S. Treasury Department)