“Building a credit-responsible community” is the goal of two dozen bankers, Realtors, representatives of civic and service organizations and government officials who met for hours Wednesday morning to head off trouble in the stuttering mortgage market.

As the slogan indicates, it’s not going to be a quick fix. Many of the strategies discussed are long-term ideas, such as teaching teenagers better money management, that won’t help people who are already in mortgage trouble or may stumble into it in the next few months.

For them, the key is to get help early, said Deborah Williams, executive director of nonprofit Housing Assistance and Development Services. That’s why the group is organizing educational meetings, opening doors to mortgage and credit counseling and urging all homebuyers to find out their mortgage details. With enough advance warning, counselors can negotiate with lenders to keep struggling borrowers from falling behind, preventing foreclosures that can snowball into job loss, family strain and declining property values that could affect the entire community, Williams said.

But often, people – and lenders – don’t even face the fact that there is a problem until it’s too late to stop foreclosure, she said.

“Most of our clients avoid this as long as they can,” Williams said. “We have a lot of people in denial.”

Williams and Mayor Elaine Walker returned two weeks ago from a U.S. Conference of Mayors meeting in Detroit on the issue. Knowing that a wave of foreclosures started last year in Ohio, Michigan and Indiana, spreading to California and other states, they assembled local leaders well-equipped to intervene here.

Locally, the mortgage crunch could mean the loss of $62 million in economic growth in and around Bowling Green next year, a combination of falling property values, fewer jobs and reduced family spending in reaction to financial crises, according to a report from the conference.

Bowling Green is doing well economically, but intervention is still needed to protect local homeowners, Walker said. It’s still a great time to buy a house – so long as the payments are well within a family’s budget, and are going to stay that way, she said.

Much of the problem elsewhere has come from adjustable-rate mortgages, which offered very low interest and payments for the first few years, only to reset much higher later on. About 3 million mortgages are scheduled to “reset” nationwide in May, according to Williams.

The problem stems not just from mortgages, but from the full spectrum of credit that’s been available to people for several years – such as credit cards charging 24 percent interest, said Landon Carter of Monticello Bank.

Lonnie Gann of Hunt Real Estate, 2008 president of the Bowling Green Board of Realtors, said he just conducted his first-ever “short sale”: Family members realized that they couldn’t afford the house they were in, and sold it for less than their mortgage was worth.

“It had nothing to do with the house, and everything to do with other debt and lifestyle,” he said.

Gann called the lender about the sale, asking for speedy processing, and was told there were 2,000 similar cases in the same line, he said. That short sale cost the lender $18,000, Gann said. But Williams said that was still better than foreclosure, not only for the family’s credit rating but because lenders typically lose more than $40,000 on a foreclosed house.

The group is organizing to hold “Super Saturdays” – and evenings – at churches and other civic gathering places for people to bring in their mortgage paperwork and let counselors interpret it, tell them if they may need help, then provide those options, Williams said. Even those who don’t think they’ll have a problem – and certainly those who don’t know their terms – should check it out, she said.

“There is nothing worse than doing nothing,” Williams said.

HANDS is the only local agency certified by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to do foreclosure prevention and loss mitigation counseling, Williams said.

McKenna Denson of the Bowling Green International Center asked who would be eligible for that free counseling service. Williams’ reply: Everyone.

There are not just predatory lenders, but predatory counselors, who exploit worried families by charging an average of $1,500 for what HANDS does for free, Williams said.

HANDS, the Housing Authority of Bowling Green, the city’s Housing and Community Development Department, and Kentucky Legal Aid all offer credit counseling and home-buying education, Walker said.

Foreclosures may loom not just for people without good jobs, but for many people who have bought large houses and are too proud to admit they can’t make the payments, said Rick Williams of Monticello Bank.

Carter said a friend of his, a doctor, is five months behind in payments on a $400,000 house but too embarrassed to ask for help. Deborah Williams urged him to call HANDS – even at that point, counselors may be able to intervene with the lender, she said.

Elissia Palmer, counselor for HANDS, said that contact will be fully confidential.

“Nobody will know that they’re coming in but me,” she said.

— For more information of free mortgage counseling and other assistance, call HANDS at 796-4176.