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Sarah Fountain then gave an introduction
of our guest speaker, Michelle Jones who is
vice president of counseling at Consumer Credit Counseling
Service (CCCS) of Greater Atlanta.
Mrs. Jones, a resident of Decatur along with her family, is
responsible for all counseling services, including a staff of
more than 300 counselors who specialize in budget and credit,
housing and pre-filing bankruptcy counseling. These counseling
services are provided in-person, by telephone and online.
Jones has been in her current position since 2002. She
joined the agency in 1997 as a counselor. She was promoted to
a branch manager in 1998 and was made director of branch
counseling in 2000. She is a graduate of the University of
Georgia and holds a master's degree in clinical psychology
from Georgia Southern University.
Michelle Jones opened her talk about "The Pressing
Foreclosure Crisis" by first telling us a little about the
services that CCCS of Atlanta offers to its constituents at
its offices in Atlanta and here in Decatur on the courthouse
square. These services include (1) the next best steps a
person can take to find a solution to saving their home and
their credit history; (2) debt counseling services for people
with too much unsecured debt ; and (3) bankruptcy
counseling.
Mrs. Jones shared some statistics that demonstrated the
exponential increases in people needing debt counseling with
over 73,000 cases in 2008 supplied by a staff of 300. She
illustrated that the typical client has changed from a single
woman with children and a modest income to families with
household income of over $50,000, but with severe problems
making mortgage payments due to job losses or other economic
events.
Mrs. Jones also gave the audience several examples of
counseling successes where the CCCS was able to intervene with
loan servicers and get people's interest rates reduced to
allow them to continue to service the debt and avoid a
foreclosure. She emphasized that the key to helping people is
early intervention, contacting the loan servicer; and
developing a bare bones recovery budget for the client.
Following our speaker's talk, President Mark presented the
DeKalb Library System with Up to Our Eyeballs, How Shady
Lenders and Failed Economic Policies are Drowning Americans in
Debt by Garcia, Lardner, and Zeldin in our speaker's
honor.
Reported By John B. Kline
Photographs By Mark Burnette
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