Obama’s foreclosure plan excluded underwater borrowers who most needed it.

Evidence

But when Chris lost her job in 2009 she struggled to keep making the payments. The house was underwater. She had already paid 240,000 on a home now valued at 40,000. Her mortgage changed hands at least three times in six months. Chris tried everything to prevent foreclosure, but the latest holder of her loan—Investors One Corporation—decided to evict her. President Obama had created a plan to help distressed borrowers, but Chris couldn’t take advantage of it; the program required that homeowners be current on their mortgage, and she was not. “But if you’re current on your mortgage, you don’t need modification,” Chris said. The game seemed rigged to protect the mortgage lenders. — Eddie S. Glaude Jr., Democracy in Black, 31

Categorization

• QUESTION: Worth checking whether the Obama HAMP design (requiring current payments) was an acknowledged policy failure; this detail is precisely the kind of falsifiable mechanism the reader wants to anchor.
• XREF: Directly feeds the reader’s post-Obama aging question — here Obama’s own policies failed black borrowers, complicating the trap-vs-strategy frame beyond simple party loyalty.