California Extends Homeowner Mortgage and Tax Relief Support

The Original California Mortgage Relief Program

The California Mortgage Relief Program was created using roughly $1 billion in federal Homeowner Assistance Fund (HAF) dollars from the American Rescue Plan Act. Administered by the CalHFA Homeowner Relief Corporation, the program offered grants — not loans — to help income-eligible homeowners catch up on missed payments and other housing obligations that built up during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Eligible homeowners could receive:

• Up to $80,000 per household for delinquent mortgage payments.
• Assistance with delinquent property taxes.
• Support for past-due homeowner association (HOA) fees and related housing costs.

Eligibility generally required homeowners to earn at or below 100% of area median income, own and occupy a primary residence in California, and document a pandemic-related financial hardship. Because the grants did not have to be repaid, the program became one of the most generous in the country.

Program Wind-Down

The original California Mortgage Relief Program stopped accepting new applications on May 1, 2024, and issued its final grants on September 30, 2024. State officials emphasized that the program had been designed from the start as a pandemic-era, time-limited tool — and that federal HAF funds were never intended to last indefinitely.

As the program wound down, state leaders began working on how to sustain and extend mortgage and property tax relief beyond the federal sunset.

Expanded Disaster-Focused Relief

Building on the original program's infrastructure, California launched the CalAssist Mortgage Fund, administered by CalHFA, to help homeowners whose primary residences were destroyed or rendered uninhabitable by qualifying disasters. The fund was designed to provide direct mortgage payments to servicers on behalf of eligible homeowners.

In a 2026 expansion, Governor Gavin Newsom announced a significant increase in the program's reach:

• Payment coverage: Expanded from three months to up to 12 months of mortgage payments.
• Dollar cap: Raised from $20,000 to $100,000 per eligible household.
• Scope: Focused on homeowners affected by specific disaster declarations — including wildfires and other qualifying events.

The expansion represented a four-fold increase in benefits compared with the prior CalAssist design, reflecting the scale of losses California homeowners have faced in recent years.

Property Tax Relief Components

Alongside mortgage relief, California has maintained several avenues for property tax support for homeowners:

• Property tax postponement for seniors, disabled homeowners, and certain low-income households through the State Controller's Office.
• Disaster-related property tax reassessment for homes damaged by wildfires, floods, and other disasters under Proposition 50 and related statutes.
• Proposition 19 base-year value transfers for eligible homeowners over 55, severely disabled homeowners, and disaster victims.

Each of these tools operates independently of CalHFA's mortgage programs and can be layered with other forms of relief.

How Homeowners Can Get Help Today

With the original mortgage relief program closed, homeowners facing payment difficulty should:

• Contact their mortgage servicer immediately; federal rules require servicers to evaluate loss mitigation options before foreclosure.
• Work with a HUD-approved housing counseling agency — free, certified counselors can negotiate with servicers and screen for available state and federal programs.
• Check the CalHFA website for the latest CalAssist Mortgage Fund rules and eligibility if affected by a declared disaster.
• Ask their county tax collector about disaster-related reassessment or property tax postponement if applicable.

The Bigger Lesson

California's Mortgage Relief Program — from its original HAF-funded rollout to the CalAssist expansion — illustrates how states have increasingly built infrastructure to deliver targeted homeowner relief quickly. For homeowners, the takeaway is to stay informed: programs open, close, and expand with little notice, and acting early is almost always better than waiting until foreclosure is imminent.