Nobody in the Ohio attorney general’s office was surprised when the government recently announced that less than 10 percent of eligible homeowners facing foreclosure had received help in reworking their loans.

“We’ve been participating in meetings with mortgage servicers starting in late 2007,” said Bob Hart, an assistant attorney general. And they’ve been told repeatedly “to ramp up your staffs to handle the numbers.”

“And they didn’t do it, and they’re still not doing it.”

All the while, people continue to lose their homes.

Financial institutions hold mortgages on about 51 million American homes, 1.9 million of which are in the foreclosure process or are bank-owned, according to RealtyTrac, a California company that follows foreclosures.

Full story is available on The Columbus Dispatch