WASHINGTON - The Bush administration, trying to deal with a worsening housing slump, announced a new initiative Tuesday aimed at helping homeowners about to lose their homes. For qualified homeowners, it will put the foreclosure process on hold for 30 days.
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Dubbed "Project Lifeline," the new program will be available to people who have taken out all types of mortgages, not just the high-cost subprime loans that have been the focus on previous relief efforts.
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"Project Lifeline is a valuable response, literally a lifeline, for people on the brink of the final steps in foreclosure," Housing and Urban Development Secretary Alphonso Jackson, said at a joint news conference with Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson.

He said the goal was to provide a temporary pause in the foreclosure process "long enough to find a way out" by allowing homeowners and lenders to negotiate a more affordable mortgage.

Paulson said that the new effort was just one of a number of approaches the administration was pursuing with the mortgage industry to deal with the country's worst housing slump in more than two decades.