[Kyra Phillips, Cnn Anchor:] Next stop on the "ROAD TO RESCUE." That's us. It's your own front door, as well. Recovery begins at home, and a big push forward in construction just may be a start. Push back to stay put with the "CNN Survival Guide." Fighting foreclosure. This hour Gerri Willis shows you how to keep your house. Hello, everyone. I'm Kyra Phillips live at the CNN world headquarters in Atlanta. You're live in the CNN NEWSROOM. Desperate times call for unprecedented coverage. All week long, CNN is covering the economic meltdown as only CNN can. The "Road to Rescue" begins with a simple idea: knowledge is power. Power to find or keep homes, jobs, savings and hope. For the big picture, the family snapshots, the starts and the stories, stay on "The Road to Rescue: The CNN Survival Guide" all week long. Up first this hour, breaking ground and raising hope. From the depths of America's housing crisis comes an unexpected surge in construction. Housing starts shot up 22 percent last month with new apartment projects leading the way. Building permit applications rose, too, a little. In both cases, economists expect it to climb. And none of this matters if you're on the brink of foreclosure, as more than two million of us were last year alone. By some estimates, a house is lost to foreclosure every 13 seconds. But it doesn't have to be yours. Gerri Willis joins me now with a page from the "CNN Survival Guide." Gerri, why don't we go ahead and start with the time line? And how does the trouble start?
[Gerri Willis, Cnn Personal Finance Editor:] OK. Well, to understand foreclosure; you've got to understand how it works. Right? Here's a time line. Remember, this all varies by state. But typically when it goes through the court system starts when you miss a payment. Your lender starts reporting you to credit bureaus. Your credit score, it takes a hit with every missed payment. And after three months of this, your lender will probably file a letter of intent to foreclose or a notice of delinquency. You'll get this as certified mail. Now, two months after that, if you continue not to make payments, your lender will file a formal foreclosure lawsuit. This is when the deputy or the local sheriff walks up your sidewalk and hands papers over to you at the front door. And this is when the legal process starts. In some states it can take up to a year or more to have your home sold. In other states, the process is faster. It depends on where you are. But I have to tell you, these are the basics. These are the basic guidelines Kyra.
[Phillips:] All right. Well, let's go ahead then. Then how can people modify their mortgages?
[Willis:] All right. So one out for you out there, if you're worried about foreclosures, try to get a new loan. Modify your existing mortgage is a good option. It's basically a change in your loan terms. A modification can lower your monthly mortgage payments or allow you to skip a few payments. Sometimes your loan is simply extended and made longer. Nearly all the big banks have some sort of modification program in place, and the government has outlined two programs designed to help homeowners. Now, they call it the Homeowner Affordability and Stability Plan. Part of it helps people who are current in their loans to refinance under fixed-rate loans. The other one is a loan mod program for delinquent borrowers. There's some loan forgiveness, assistance. If you want details go to FinancialStability.gov. And Kyra, I have to say, if you don't get into one of the government programs or your lender won't help you out, you can always try to find a buyer on your own. Remember, though, if the house is simply too expensive for you, you're either going to have to try to find a loan that helps you out or sell it, get out of it, get rid of it. It's not worth having this albatross around your shoulders.
[Phillips:] Especially when we don't know what's going to happen for months to come. All right, Gerri, appreciate it. Sky-high mortgage and a plunging income add up to trouble for one Virginia family. Gerri is actually going to rejoin us a little later this hour with a Nicole Botkin, a wife and mom who still hopes to keep her home for life. And we want to know what you want to know. Whether you're buying, selling, saving, staying or moving, send us your questions about housing. Our address is CNNnewsroom@CNN.com. Gerri Willis has answers for us next hour. The foreclosure crisis may have started with subprime mortgages, but the latest wave of lost homes is tied to lost jobs. And that brings us to a job fair under way right now in Landover, Maryland. We're already getting iReports. Here they are.
[Charnita Tyler, Ireporter:] My first job fair, and I'm just hoping for the best like all these other people. You know, we have bills and mortgages and families to take care of. So it's really scary to me. But like I said, it's only been a week for me, but I never thought I'd be in this situation but here I am.
[Phillips:] It's being called a diversity employment expedition. And diverse describes the employers, too, from Avon to the U.S. Secret Service. Our Barbara Starr is actually there. Barbara, how's the turnout?
[Barbara Starr, Cnn Correspondent:] Well, Kyra, as you can see behind me, this line several hours into this job fair is just stretching around FedEx Stadium, the home of the Washington Redskins here in the metropolitan Washington area. But today, here, it is all about jobs at this diversity job fair. Hundreds of people still hours later continuing to arrive, making their way inside the stadium to talk to some of those employers. An awful lot of folks facing hard times. We're hearing stories about layoffs, no health insurance, really struggling to make ends meet. And I want you to meet a gentleman that we were talking to a few minutes ago. This is Marshall Brown, who was telling us about being laid off from his maintenance job and the struggles that he's having. Marshall, I wanted to ask you to go back over it. Tell people right now just how hard it is to pay the bills, to make ends meet since you got laid off from your maintenance job.
[Marshall Brown, Job Seeker:] Yes, it's very hard. Like I said, you have your insurance with the job and you lose your job. You lose that, too. And like I say, you're paying child support out of your check. You know? That ends. So it's like, man, it's struggling right now. I've going, calling, Internet, doing everything. And I'm still not getting it right now. So it's hard. It's hard. Very hard. And my new truck, about to lose that. But thank God I still have that. But like I said, I still got my head up. Everybody keep their head up. And keep going. That's all I can do. I got six kids, so I got to. I want to be there for them.
[Starr:] Yes, I know. You told us that you do have six children you're supporting. No health insurance. And when you get finally get inside the stadium here, who do what kind of employers do you want to talk to? What kind of job are you looking for?
[Brown:] Well, I'm still in air conditioningrefrigeration, so heating and stuff like that. I'm trying to stay in that. And like I said, if I go in here and they can't help me, man, I'm working on another site, man. I'm trying to see what else is going on. But mostly that, and hopefully, one day I can run my own business. But until then, I hope they can help.
[Starr:] Well, we saved you your spot in line. We don't want you getting out of line, so we're going to let you go back now and thank you. And you know, Kyra, that's really the story that we're continuing to hear out here, people trying to make ends meet. A lot of folks here saying they are doing without any health insurance right now. One woman we talked to is a colon cancer survivor. She is supposed to be going to the doctor for her regular checkups. She told us she hasn't been. She's had to give them up. She has no job; she has no insurance. She doesn't know when she's getting back to the doctor Kyra.
[Phillips:] That's pretty unbelievable, the stories that we hear. And these job fairs, Barbara, are happening all across the country, many of them staying open later so everybody gets a chance to come through there. What's your sense? Will the doors stay open so everybody that's lining up will get a chance to come in and have a shot at something?
[Starr:] Well, I don't know the answer just yet, but I think it's really possible, because again, as you look behind us over this way, this job fair is supposed to wrap up in just under two hours. But there are hundreds of people here and they are still streaming in to the parking lot here at FedEx Field. The line stretches out of sight, around the corner at this football stadium. And as you say, we have seen this every week now in cities across the country, at stadiums and community centers. People just looking for a decent job and a way to get by.
[Phillips:] We'll keep tracking all those job fairs, as well. Barbara Starr, thank you so much. You can always go to CNN.comjobfairs, as well, to find out where other fairs are taking place across the country. Well, President Obama says that his budget will spark the transformation that America needs to stay competitive, and he calls it an economic blueprint for the future. Mr. Obama met this morning with the chairman of the House and Senate budget committees to talk about the $3.5 trillion plan. And the president had this to say to members of Congress who don't agree with it.
[Barack Obama, President Of The United States:] If certain aspects of this budget people don't think work, provide us some ideas in terms of what you'd do. "Just say no" is the right advice to give your teenagers about drugs. It is not an acceptable response to whatever economic policy is proposed by the other party.
[Phillips:] Mr. Obama says that the country cannot go back to a bubble economy based on reckless spending. And the daily White House briefing gets under way in our next hour. The president's budget plans are likely to draw a lot of questions. We'll definitely listen in when that starts. Outraged. That's what a lot of you are feeling after hearing that AIG handed out huge bonuses to top executives after getting more than $170 billion in federal bailout money. In all, those bonuses totaled $155 million, and President Obama calls it outrageous. One Republican senator had a pretty interesting remedy, though.
[Sen. Charles Grassley , Iowa:] I would suggest the first thing that would make me feel a little bit better towards them, if they'd follow the Japanese example and come before the American people and take that deep bow, and say "I'm sorry," and then either do one of two things: resign or go commit suicide.
[Phillips:] Whoa. The president and members of Congress are trying to figure out how to recoup the money. AIG reported this month that it lost more than $61 billion in the fourth quarter of last year. That's the biggest corporate loss in U.S. history. Stimulus, stimulus, stimulus. Enough already. Where is the dough and how do you even get your hands on it? We've got some answers for you.