According to an article in USA Today on Friday, Freddie Mac announced a first-of-a-kind plan that lets homeowners and tenants temporarily stay in homes in foreclosure by renting them back, an effort to stop many of the sudden evictions that have come along with the housing crisis.

According to the article in the paper, the program will let thousands of qualified former homeowners, as well as families renting from landlords, enter into a monthly lease on their homes after they have been acquired by Freddie Mac through foreclosure.Freddie Mac officials expect the program to help about 8,600 families in 2009.

The program gives homeowners and renters more time to find a new place to live and also keeps homes occupied. That’s a plus for neighborhoods where numerous foreclosures have led to empty, unmaintained, vandalized properties.

“For tenants, it’s a big difference,” says Mark Zandi, an economist with Moody’s Economy.com. “If this acts as a benchmark for other mortgage servicers, it would be a very positive development. It’s a win-win. “

Details of the program:

•Leases will be on a month-to-month basis.

•Tenants and homeowners will only have to pay market-value or existing lease rents, not the mortgage payments. Freddie Mac will hire a property management company to determine that amount.

•Tenants and homeowners must be able to show proof that they have enough income to pay the monthly rental amount.

•Freddie Mac will also explore loan-modification options that might be available for some borrowers.

Well, this sounded almost too good to be true for many troubled homeowners, so I went straight to the Freddie Mac website to see if I could verify the article. Indeed, you can read about it straight from the horse’s mouth right here.