More than 700 Bronxites rallied two weeks ago for government-aided relief from the home foreclosure crisis sweeping the Bronx and the entire country.

Though the northwest Bronx, mostly a community of renters, has not been hit as hard as the northeast Bronx, the areas of Fordham and University Heights have the highest per-capita rate of foreclosures in the city, said Greg Jost, deputy director of the University Neighborhood Housing Program (UNHP), a nonprofit housing group based in North Fordham.

Nationwide, nearly 8,000 people are filing for foreclosure each day, and statewide, one in 32 homeowners is projected to face foreclosure in the next few years, according to the Pew Center on the States, a non-profit organization that researches foreclosures.

In the northwest Bronx, foreclosures have jumped from 51 in 2006, to 65 in 2007, to 62 already in 2008, according to data provided by UNHP.

Compounding the crisis is the fact that there is only one overwhelmed foreclosure counselor in the entire northwest Bronx to help owners struggling to overcome bad loans, many of them pushed on them by overzealous lenders looking to make a quick sell.

The foreclosure crisis riled up some of the loudest and most frequent chants at the Northwest Bronx Community and Clergy Coalition’s (NWBCCC) Shared Fate Action Forum at the St. Nicholas of Tolentine Church on May 31.

The NWBCCC, along with other activist groups and elected officials, are fighting foreclosures on three fronts: passing federal and state legislation to bail homeowners out of bad loans and foreclosures, getting the Federal Reserve to regulate mortgage lenders, and working with homeowners to pay off their loans and keep their houses.

U.S. Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY) made a surprise visit after biking from his Brooklyn home to affirm his support for the Senate’s version of the House anti-foreclosure bill, which passed on May 8.

“The bill will lower the amount of the principal, so that one million people can refinance and keep their homes,” Schumer said. The Federal Housing Administration would insure the refinanced mortgages.

At the meeting, state senators Efrain Gonzalez (D-Bronx) and Eric Schneiderman (D-Inwood/Bronx) pledged to support Senator Frank Padavan’s (R-Queens) bill that would impose a one-year moratorium on foreclosures; Assemblyman Jim Brennan’s (D-Brooklyn) version passed in May.

State Senator Darryl Towns (D-Brooklyn) and Jeff Klein (D-Bronx/Westchester) have also sponsored a bill that would require lenders to offer borrowers the best loan for which they qualify, so people with good credit are not steered into overpriced loans.

But activist groups are not only waiting for legislation to pass.

National People’s Action (NPA), an umbrella organization of community groups of which NWBCCC is a member, and the National Training and Information Center (NTIC) met with Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke on May 9.

“Bernanke needs to take bold action because the Federal Reserve worked extra hard to bail out Bear Stearns,” said Heidi Hynes, a housing organizer with NWBCCC, and was one of five national leaders at the meeting.

The Fed, as the Federal Reserve is known, without precedent loaned billions to investment bank JP Morgan to buy Bear Stearns, a competitor that had made a fortune on mortgage-backed securities, but was on the verge of bankruptcy after the market soured.

Since the Fed went to extremes to bail out Bear Stearns, NPA and NTIC are calling on the Fed to do the same for homeowners. They want the Fed to regulate mortgage workouts, such as changing variable-rate mortgages that start off at a low interest rate then skyrocket months later into 30-year fixed rate mortgages.

Though NWBCCC does not do mortgage consulting, NPA hopes to partner with the Wilshire Credit Corporation, a loan service subsidiary of Merrill Lynch, to help families pay off their loans instead of going into foreclosure.

Hynes is concerned that without foreclosure help, homes could be abandoned, and neighborhood safety and quality of life will suffer.

“If the neighborhood gets boarded up, it’ll be a scary place to raise kids,” she said. “Federal Reserve Chairman Bernanke is not going to let the Bronx burn again, and we are not going to let him.”

Ed. note: For help with foreclosure proceedings or restructuring loans, call UNHP at (718) 933-3101, Neighborhood Housing Services at (718) 881-1180, Neighborhood Initiatives Development Corporation at (718) 231-9800 or the city Foreclosure Prevention Hotline at (212) 669-4600.