It's difficult to catch Mark Seifert at the office these days. The executive director of ESOP (the East Side Organizing Project) is busy driving across the state, visiting Columbus, Sandusky, Dayton and more, as part of a hurried attempt to turn a successful Cleveland grassroots operation into a statewide force by replicating what ESOP does better than anyone - keeping people who face foreclosure in their homes.

"ESOP's developed a procedure that's very efficient," says Ohio Treasurer Richard Cordray, a key architect in ESOP's expansion. "They get loan workouts done in a quick turnaround." Cordray is talking about helping borrowers at the edge of foreclosure make deals with lenders and loan servicers, deals that can reduce principal balances, fix interest rates, and waive prepayment and other fees. Combined, these measures leave struggling homeowners with affordable monthly payments.

And ESOP has the best record in the business. As other counseling agencies struggle under the weight of hundreds of homeowners seeking help, ESOP has an assembly-line process so staff hours result in the maximum possible loan workouts. Last year, the agency helped facilitate more than 1,500 workouts, more than any other organization in the state, according to Cordray.

While ESOP's been a huge asset to Cleveland's foreclosure crisis, there is little such solace in other parts of the state. A report released last month by Ohio Attorney General Marc Dann, 10 other state attorneys general and a consortium of state bank regulators - known as the State Foreclosure Prevention Working Group - looked at how homeowners fared when they went directly to lenders or servicers for help. The group found that many Ohio homeowners were in a "mortgage trap." Almost 70 percent of seriously delinquent loans (those in default by 90 or more days) were not in any workout situation at all. Of those that did end up in mitigation, two-thirds were still unresolved a month later.

Treasurer Cordray, as one state official on the frontlines of Ohio's foreclosure disaster, has traveled across the state trying to figure out what's being done in the private and public sectors and how to improve matters.

"I've seen a lot of different approaches," he says, "and I've become convinced that what's lacking most is working out bad loans so people can get on a sustainable path." There are borrower-oriented agencies out there trying to do the work, Cordray says, but they're drowning in an ever-increasing flood of foreclosures. Plus, lenders are reluctant to offer concessions on a systematic scale, so individual workouts are left to continue at a snail's pace. Caseworkers can spend 100 hours on a single workout and still get nowhere.

ESOP is different. The key to its success is a unique set of signed agreements between ESOP and various lenders and loan servicers. Of a dozen agreements, including one with Countrywide, many were fought for through old-school, direct-action organizing tactics, like taking 500 people to a CEO's front lawn to demand answers. (ESOP's community membership decided this was the best way to reach deal-makers and get solutions.) So today, ESOP can successfully work out new loan terms 85 percent of the time. The agreements with each lender and servicer outline best practices, like eliminating balloon payments, and naming a point person with authority to make concessions and stop foreclosures from progressing. This gives lenders and counselors a template from which to say yes or no, versus haggling over details day after day.

The vital piece of this process is ESOP's signature "hot spot" card. Once borrowers enter ESOP's office and fill out information on who they are, what trouble they're having and with which lender, this hot spot card becomes the template for action. Otherwise, ESOP's Seifert says, the contract is nothing more than a bunch of words. (A small group of lenders has recently signed voluntary agreements with Gov. Ted Strickland's office. What's missing is a way to hold these lenders accountable to the promises laid out in the contracts, like ESOP does through its hot spot card process.)

In August, Cordray honed in on ESOP's way of doing things as the answer to getting faster and more efficient workouts throughout Ohio.

"I thought, what if we could ratchet up what ESOP could do," Cordray says. Community groups across the state were spending more and more staff time on mortgage problems, crushing credit card debt and payday loan issues. ESOP, meanwhile, already had effective, aggressive agreements with lenders and servicers, and the know-how to expedite loan workouts. What if ESOP could take on these other agencies' mortgage-loan workouts instead, in addition to setting up satellite offices where there wasn't any existing help already available?

The next step was money for ESOP to expand its footprint. In December, Congress appropriated close to $180 million for grassroots foreclosure-mitigation efforts. The Ohio Housing Finance Agency, geared toward creating affordable housing opportunities in the state, got $3 million to disburse to state groups, and Cordray made sure ESOP was at the top of the list.

Since February, Seifert has been scrambling to rise to the challenge. ESOP was awarded the largest out of 18 total grants made by OHFA - more than $800,000. The organization's Cleveland office has already been ramped up with four additional counselors. One new office opened last month in Trumbull County. Seifert plans to have three more branches up and running by year's end (that's also when the grant money expires). And he's driving to cities across Ohio so that he can train others in the ESOP way.

It's a lot of work and Seifert's figuring it out as he goes. "We've never done this before on a statewide level," he says. Cordray describes this new effort as a "homemade program we've put together." That's because ESOP wasn't designed to be a statewide organization or an expert in loan workouts. (Like many community groups, ESOP has a history of activism around public safety and education. ESOP turned its attention more toward predatory lending in the late 1990s.)

"It's an accident that ESOP evolved into a loan-workout machine," Cordray says. A year and a half ago, ESOP staff consisted of just Seifert and one other person. And there were several payroll cycles that went unpaid, Seifert says. Now Seifert has a single grant almost triple ESOP's annual budget - one he needs to implement in a matter of weeks. "I'm worried about how I'm going to make it work," Seifert says. He needs phones, quality counselors, computers - now. But, he says, "You order a new phone and it's "Sorry sir, that's going to take three to five weeks.'"

Nevertheless, both Seifert and Cordray are excited about the impact ESOP's expansion will have on Ohio's seemingly unending foreclosure crisis. "Let's turn ESOP into something bigger for the state," Cordray says. "There's not a lot else available for people in trouble."