This is a step in the right direction but what about all the middle class people who are going to lose their homes because they lost their businesses or because of extended shut-downs???

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By Christian Datoc

Ben Carson, who prior to launching his political career was one of the world’s foremost neurosurgeons, provides his medical assessment of the administration’s coronavirus response. He also explains the paramount necessity of implementing a widespread nationwide testing system for reopening the economy, and addresses the social factors that predispose the African American community to coronavirus and other diseases.

He discusses how HUD, Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin, and congressional leaders are negotiating a new round of mortgage relief into the next phase of the coronavirus stimulus plan.

CARSON: I think the pandemic has emphasized what we’ve known all along, that these disparities obviously subject people to more risk with anything that happens. As I mentioned last week, you know, if you go back to last year’s flu environment, we lost a lot more people in the African American and Hispanic community also, because the underlying problems existed then. They existed 50 years ago, and they’ll exist tomorrow if we don’t use this opportunity to address them.

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Well, you know, with the people who are endorsed by FHA [Federal Housing Administration], and our associated units like USDA [United States Department of Agriculture] and the VA, we provide partial claim, which means that you can take those payments that were missed and create a sub mortgage, interest free by the way. So, when you finish paying off your mortgage, then those kick in, so those kinds of creative things, I think can help solve the problem. What we have to think about, though, are the services and the people providing those mortgages, they have obligations as well. Particularly the non-banks, who really do a lot of the mortgage lending these days, who don’t have, you know, enormous amounts of cash, we have to make sure in the stimulus package that we provide them a mechanism or we’re going to destroy the mortgage industry. So those are the things that we’re obviously thinking about.