The National Association of Consumer Advocates, the National Association of Consumer Bankruptcy Attorneys and the National Consumer Law Center have released the results of a survey showing that “mortgage servicers continue to initiate foreclosure proceedings improperly, either while a homeowner is awaiting a loan modification or due to improper fees or payment processing.” And it’s occurring even after the services signed an earlier settlement to end the practices.

The Administration continued to push back on one particular story from Shahien Nasiripour by devoting an entire blog post about whether bank servicers can count the incentives from HAMP modifications toward the “credits” in the foreclosure fraud settlement. But Shahien’s story didn’t make that claim (thought the title hinted), and we’re still without actual terms to see how it all works.

I didn’t think much of the HAMP changes announced last Friday, but my pessimism mainly came from the fact that HAMP itself is an irreparably damaged program that nobody wants to use. There’s also the point that the GSEs are generally uninterested in a principal reduction program, and servicers are conflicted. There’s little reason to hope these changes will help much.

We may be getting close to a settlement betweent some state AGs and the mortgage bankers on foreclosure and related mortgage practices. Late on Friday I spoke with Simon Johnson, the former chief economist of the IMF and a professor at MIT, who also writes the Baseline Scenario blog with James Kwak. Johnson has been skeptical of the foreclosure fraud settlement.

The 1% protects the 1%. That’s all we’re talking about here. The problem for the Administration is that millions of homeowners have paid the price for this protection racket, and there’s an election coming up. So the effort will be made to create a fig leaf of a “solution” to “fix” the housing market and benefit homeowners.

What hasn’t received enough attention is the extent to which we’ve already been down this road. In 2008, 12 AGs entered into a settlement with Bank of America over Countrywide lending practices. As part of the settlement, BofA agreed to modify as many as 400,000 mortgages, costing $8.4 billion, with a variety of types of mods, including principal reductions and refinancing. In addition, servicer practices were supposed to change and foreclosure operations on the affected homes suspended.

Shaun Donovan, the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, made some news today at the US Conference of Mayors, by saying that a foreclosure fraud settlement was imminent and that it would include principal write-downs for up to one million borrowers.

The CFPB has worked to bring clarity to mortgage, student loan and credit card statements with their “Know Before You Owe” program. But with the appointment of Cordray, now they get the full regulatory authorities of the agency.

A Boston non-profit has announced a pilot program with mortgage banks (e.g., Bank of America) to purchase near foreclosure mortgages at market value and re-finance to the home owners at just above market prices. It’s effectively a principal write down, a better deal for the banks that could help a few homeowners too.

Now here’s one of those tanigble victories for the Occupy movement. In Atlanta, protesters saved the house of an Iraq war veteran from foreclosure. There are thousands of potential stories just like Brigitte Walker’s, and thousands of potential activists ready to act on the situations. It’s time to get to work.