All across Maryland, as moms and dads make big decisions and plan for their future around the kitchen table, they are finding ways to do more with less. So must our state government.

In April, we secured nearly $40 million from the Obama Administration for Mortgage Assistant Grants to help families save their homes.

Other states missed the September 30 deadline for distributing these grants.  In fact, last week the Sun reported that “Of the $1 billion Congress allocated nationwide last year for the forgivable loans, no more than half is likely to be spent.”

But in Maryland we recognized that these investments were too important to our families to be ignored or held back.  With a government that works, we distributed all of our federal award dollars – leading the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development to increase our allotment twice to nearly $57 million to help vulnerable families in these challenging times.

As a result, we were able to meet and exceed our goal and we helped more than 1,400 Maryland homeowners.

I wanted to take a moment to thank all of the employees at our Department of Housing and Community Development for their work on this project. Our employees worked around the clock to meet the deadline and exceed our goals, and we are grateful for their hard work.

There is no more powerful place than a family’s home and nothing more important for protecting that home than a job. Even one home lost is one too many, and we still have a lot more work ahead of us. But we are all in this together and with our hard-working and dedicated DHCD employees, we will continue to save more homes and strengthen our families.

Martin O'Malley is the Governor of Maryland. He writes a regular blog for his official website.