The number of individuals requesting services from the county’s Credit Crunch Collaborative to avoid foreclosure are down sharply from the program’s inception in 2010.

Credit Crunch, formally known as the Butler County Consumer Credit/Residential Mortgage Foreclosure Diversion Program, saw 225 homeowners or credit card holders request help when the program began.

Last year, said district court administrator Candace Graff, just 47 cases were filed. Of those, 40 were mortgages and seven were credit cards.

Graff said last year, 39 cases were successful through the “Crunch” program and 15 were unsuccessful.

County Court Judge Marilyn Horan developed and oversees the Crunch program, for which she won a state award in 2014 from the state Bar Foundation.

Horan said the housing situation and financial crash in 2008 and 2009 was the culprit for the proliferation of initial applicants.

“The big bubble with the foreclosures having occurred with the economy and the financial market back then (is the reason homeowners found themselves in foreclosure),” Horan said.

To learn more about foreclosures in Butler County, read Monday’s Butler Eagle.