The Center for American progress has released a new report addressing the policy consequences of the rising foreclosure rate. From Boom to Bust: Helping Families Prepare for the Rise in Subprime Mortgage Foreclosures is written by CAP analyst Almas Sayeed and is certainly timely in light of recently released figures showing that more than 1.2 million foreclosure cases were filed in 2006. Of course, not all of these foreclosure filings caused families to lose their houses, and the theme of the CAP’s Boom to Bust report is that there is still time to implement public policies at the state and federal level to help families who are dealing with unaffordable mortgages. The report provides a helpful survey of different state-level foreclosure rescue programs. Many of us working on bankruptcy, including bankruptcy practitioners who often file homeowners in Chapter 13 cases, would be well served to know more about these programs and consider them as alternatives for clients facing foreclosure.

This report makes a nice segue for me to let Credit Slips readers know that next week’s guest blogger will be Tara Twomey, a current adjunct at Stanford Law and former clinical instructor at Harvard Law School. Tara is in the thick of BAPCPA case law as a consultant to NACBA and the NCLC but her interest in bankruptcy grew out of years of representing clients facing foreclosure. She’s an expert on consumer real estate lending, and I hope that she’ll share some of her foreclosure-defense expertise with Credit Slips.