There’s a government program that can help you with your mortgage, to prevent foreclosure.

The Hope for Homeowners (H4H) program, approved by Congress last July, will allow you to refinance to a more affordable 30-year fixed-rate mortgage through the Federal Housing Administration or FHA. The program, which runs from October 1, 2008 until September 30, 2011, is an alternative to expensive mortgages that will help you keep your homes.

You’re eligible for the program if you:

• are living in your current home, which is your primary residence

• have no ownership interest in another home

• cannot pay your mortgage without assistance

• have made at least 6 payments for your mortgage that should have originated on or before January 1, 2008

• have paid more than 31 percent of your monthly income as of March 2008

• can prove that you haven’t been convicted of fraud in the past decade, missed debt payments deliberately, and didn’t provide false information to get your current mortgage

Hope for Homeowners is a voluntary program, which means you and your lender must mutually agree to the terms of the program.

Other terms in the program are the following:

• loans awarded will be based on your ability to repay the loan

• borrowers have to share any equity and future value appreciation with the FHA

• lenders have to take in significant losses, which are less than the losses associated with foreclosure, to benefit from the profits of government-backed loans,

• maximum loan is $550,440

• new mortgage will not be more than 90 percent of the new appraised value

• borrowers can’t take on a second mortgage for the first five years from getting the new loan

More information on how to apply for the H4H program is available at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) website.