A language barrier and unfamiliarity with the lending process make southeast Asians ripe for mortgage fraud and bad loans.

Which is where the new Southeast Asian Housing Task Force comes in. Its 15 volunteer Hmong members are trained to help families suffering during this housing crisis.

"The Hmong have no one to help them," said Toulu Thao, a Hmong community activist who started the task force.

Members of the group have been trained by Mabuhay Alliance, a non-profit housing counseling agency that helps minority homeowners. The goal is to help homeowners in danger of losing their houses to foreclosure and to keep Southeast Asians from falling victim to fraud.

"They are getting scammed to death," said Rollie Smith, who heads the Fresno office of the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development. The agency assists the task force.

The task force, which is a certified housing counselor, is able to reach people that would otherwise go unassisted. "They provide an outreach to the Hmong community that we needed terribly," Smith said.

The task force held its first outreach event March 28. At it, members found that about one third of the 140 or so people in attendance were victims of fraud or loan modifications that didn't work, Thao said.

One family paid $12,000 for a loan modification - which counseling agencies will do for free - and got nothing in return. "They are vulnerable because of the language and bad guys know they don't know the system," Thao said.