The N.C. Housing Finance Agency said Thursday that the N.C. Foreclosure Prevention Fund provided its 10,000th foreclosure-prevention loan last month.

The state program was created to help people who have lost their jobs during the downturn hang onto their homes.

A. Robert Kucab, executive director of the finance agency, which designed and manages the program, said in a press release that the agency is on pace to help 21,000 homeowners by the end of 2014.

“This has been a huge effort: 10,000 loans in 26 months,” Kucab said in the release. “It was possible only because of the work of 40 HUD-approved counseling agencies all around the state.”

The program covers the mortgages for those who have lost jobs as long as they look for work or participate in job training for a new field. Two forms of assistance are provided:

• a zero-interest, deferred loan of up to $36,000 that pays the mortgage and related costs for up to 36 months while the homeowner seeks a job or takes part in job training. If the owner continues to live in the home for at least 10 years, the loan is considered satisfied.
• a zero-interest loan to pay off a second mortgage. According to the finance agency, that can help bring down a homeowner’s total monthly payment “to an affordable level and can help a homeowner who finds a new job, but at reduced income.”

The money for the program comes from the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Hardest Hit Fund.

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