Over the past two weeks, we've been covering some intense efforts by Chicago-area who want to see Cook County set aside some of the millions in foreclosure filing fee revenue for mediation services.  After a year of unsuccessfully trying to get a meeting with County Board President Todd Stroger, the group Action Now finally sat down with Chief Judge of the Cook County Circuit Courts Tim Evans earlier this week, who pledged to recommend such an initiative to the board president. 

It looks like the organizers' hard work may be paying off.  Action Now informed us today that Stroger is currently circulating a budget amendment that will set aside $3 million next year to bolster much-needed foreclosure mediation and prevention efforts. Of that, $1.3 million will go toward outreach and adding legal staff to a foreclosure hotline. The remainder will go directly toward funding additional court and mediation staff.

Action Now's Aileen Kelleher tells us that the remaining question is whether the amendment will survive if the board succeeds in passing a partial repeal of Stroger's controversial one-percent sales tax hike, which is on their agenda this coming Monday. "We have to keep up the pressure on elected officials to see that this stays in the budget," Kelleher adds.  Check back for more details on Monday afternoon.

(CORRECTION 11/16: This post originally stated that Comm. Larry Suffredin had also introduced a $1.3 million foreclosure prevention amendment. It turns out that the measure is for the functioning of the county courts, not exclusively for foreclosure-related services. We regret the error.)