By: Charles Grice

An arrest warrant has been issued for a San Jose, Calif. real estate agent who was charged with scamming victims in a deal involving a building in Modesto, Calif.

Amalek Elyassnia is wanted on ten charges of grand theft after she scammed a number of people out of roughly $500,000 after persuading them to invest in a medical office building that did not exist, according to prosecutors.

The Santa Clara district attorney’s office is urging anyone with information about Elyassnia’s whereabouts  to call their office at (408) 792-2977.

By: Margaret Olsen

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) has announced that it will close 16 field offices in a plan to cut costs and create efficiencies in the organization.

Four of the 16 offices serve eight U.S. cities that have the highest rates of foreclosures. The office closures were based on the business needs of the Department, said a HUD spokesperson.

The agency has 80 such field offices across the country, and claims that number is too high. Because a majority of HUD’s cases are handled over the phone, or through the agency’s website, and only about 10% of HUD’s business dealings actually occur in the agency’s offices, the official contended that it didn’t make fiscal sense for the agency to keep so many offices open.

These HUD office closures coincide with the forced federal budget cuts called “sequester,” which is also cutting hundreds of millions of dollars from the agency’s budget .

In addition, this reorganization will also force 900 HUD employees, about 10% of their workforce, to relocate.

By: Charles Grice

As part of its ongoing efforts to assist families and individuals with housing needs and in order to help prevent future foreclosures, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) recently announced more than $40 million in housing counseling grants.

These grants will be provided across the country, to over 330 national, regional and local organizations that work with homeowners in distress.

As a result of these HUD grants and the funding they help provide, more than 1.6 million households enjoy  a greater opportunity to find housing, make more informed choices about their housing options or keep their current residences.

HUD studies have shown the effectiveness of such housing counseling opportunities. In 2012, HUD released two reports on the impact of HUD-approved housing counseling for home buyers who purchase their first homes and those struggling to prevent foreclosure. Across both studies, the agency found that housing counseling significantly improved the likelihood that families would remain in their homes.