For the third consecutive month, the Obama administration’s signature housing help plan posted the lowest numbers of preliminary mortgage modifications since the program’s start in the spring of 2009.  Just 13,000 homeowners received initial mortgage modifications from the Home Affordable Modification Program in August, down from 14,000 in July and 15,000 in June, already the fewest since April 2009.

When President Obama announced HAMP in February 2009, he said the program would use subsidies to encourage bailed-out banks to modify mortgages for as many as 3 million or 4 million homeowners. So far, fewer than 700,000 homeowners have received lasting help from the program, which is overseen by the Treasury Department and was initially funded with billions of dollars from the Wall Street bailout. The slowing of new trial modifications suggests HAMP is less likely than ever to meet its goal.