It is estimated that as many as 9 million homeowners may lose their homes to foreclosure over the next four years, with nearly one in eight mortgages currently delinquent or in the process of foreclosure.

And the foreclosure crisis is not limited to borrowers who were offered subprime loans, either. The most recent data available from the Mortgage Bankers Association shows that prime loans account for most new foreclosures.

State courts in the United States already are facing a deluge of home foreclosures. The number of foreclosure filings have doubled in those states hardest hit by the housing crisis, with some counties in Florida and California registering 10-fold increases over levels at the beginning of the crisis two years ago. National headlines capture the crisis, highlighting case files shuttled around overworked courtrooms on hand trucks and embattled homeowners receiving sometimes as short as 15-second hearings before losing their homes.

Behind the headlines, however, lurks even worse news—most judges discover that the vast majority of foreclosure proceedings in their courts are the first time homeowners and their mortgage lenders and mortgage servicing companies have discussed these financial crises writ small across our country. The judges’ experiences bear out estimates that more than 80 percent of homeowners at risk of losing their homes had not engaged in any efforts to mitigate foreclosures with their lenders or servicers as of the end of last year.

In addition, jurisdictions in nine U.S. states now employ so-called "alternative dispute resolution" methods, and in particular mediation, to help at-risk homeowners deal with looming foreclosures by mortgage lenders or servicers. These states now realize that mediation helps reduce the impact of the housing crisis on neighborhoods, unclog courts, and achieve faster, cheaper, and better resolutions for homeowners, mortgage lenders and servicers, and the community at large. These mediation programs are still young, but the best ones are showing impressive results, resolving in nearly three-quarters of all participating foreclosure cases without the need for formal foreclosure proceedings.