The largest public employee pension fund in the United States is CalPERS. CalPERS has approximately $218 billion worth of assets. CalPERS suspended the program that offered assistance and mortgage to CalPERS members. This decision was taken as the organization observed that the members are no longer taking interest in the home loan program. This was leading to increasing costs and risks in maintaining the program. George Diehr is Chair of theCalPERS Investment Committee. He said that this change allowed them to reallocate their resources and manage to reduce the risk to the Fund.
After the program suspension is finalized no further mortgage applications could be submitted to CalPERS. It is estimated that it will take around a quarter to complete the current loan applications process. CalPERS members who are currently availing the mortgage will not be affected by the suspension.
Member Home Loan Program (MHLP) facilitated around 135,000 loans and offered advances of more than $22 billion to CalPERS members. This program was launched in early seventies. It offered fixed mortgages at market rate of 15-30 years tenure. However, from the early years of 2000s, the application received from CalPERS members and retirees reduced to a substantial amount