A 6-month-old federal foreclosure-prevention program is helping more homeowners than expected, even as new foreclosures continue to rise and critics say not enough is being done for homeowners in trouble.

The Treasury Department on Thursday said the number of homeowners whose mortgages have been modified under the Obama administration’s Home Affordable Modification Program has topped 500,000, a level officials didn’t expect to hit until November.

“This is great news for consumers . . . and the economy in general,” said Faith Schwartz, executive director of Hope Now, a mortgage industry group set up to help homeowners in distress.

The HAMP program has quickly become one of the lending industry’s favored ways to deal with rampant foreclosures, which exceeded 700,000 in both the first and second quarters of this year, far more than the estimated 550,000 new foreclosure filings in each quarter last year.

One of the largest home lenders in Indiana, JPMorgan Chase&Co., ranks as the top user of the HAMP program, with 106,000 modifications started through August. That was about 25 percent of all Chase loans that were more than 60 days delinquent.

“We think it’s been very effective,” Chase spokeswoman Nancy Norris said of HAMP. Chase has hired 4,000 loan counselors since January to handle mortgage modification requests from its customers, she said.

So far this year, she said, “we have not seen a dropoff at all in the number of people wanting modifications. The volume is still very heavy.”

Critics note the HAMP program and other programs don’t help the growing number of homeowners who’ve lost their jobs and can’t afford even reduced mortgage payments.

Eligibility criteria leave others out in the cold, like Nick Aquila, an Indianapolis accountant who lost his job in December and relies now on his wife’s income. When he tried to get his 4-year-old federal FHA mortgage modified, he was told he couldn’t because he had refinanced it earlier this year, and only mortgages that are older than a year are eligible for modification.

“Which is really an unfortunate situation. That’s why I chose Chapter 13 bankruptcy, because it prevents me from losing my home to foreclosure,” said Aquila, who’s restructuring his debts in bankruptcy court.

An Indiana law that went into effect in August gives a homeowner the right to ask for a settlement conference with the lender before a mortgage can be foreclosed on, with the hope that the mortgage company will modify the loan.

About 300 people statewide asked for a settlement conference in August.

The Indiana Foreclosure Prevention Network estimates that 5,000 to 8,000 homeowners in Indiana will opt for settlement conferences to try to head off foreclosures in the first year of the new law, said David Kaufmann, policy manager of the Indiana Housing and Community Development Authority, which runs the Indiana Foreclosure Prevention Network.

With foreclosures in Indiana running at about 45,000 a year, the estimate of those who’ll ask for settlement conferences represents 11 percent to 18 percent of all homeowners in foreclosure.

Early indications are that HAMP and mediation laws in Indiana and at least 13 other states aren’t effective, says a critical new study by the National Consumer Law Center in Boston.

The 36-page study faults the programs for being toothless, not holding lenders accountable and lacking a way to tell if they work.

“Under most of the existing foreclosure mediation programs, (loan) servicers have all the discretion and homeowners have little or no power,” said study author Geoffrey Walsh, a staff attorney for the nonprofit law center, which advocates for low-income consumers.

The Boston group said HAMP, funded by $50 billion in financial incentives for lenders, servicers and borrowers, has been “chaotic,” with hazy rules and “widespread evasion of their obligations” by loan servicers.

Indiana’s program has been hurt by the refusal of one of the state’s largest credit counseling agencies to participate.

Momentive Consumer Credit Counseling Service, with offices in Indianapolis, Columbus, Muncie and Evansville, decided not to represent any clients in settlements because that could be seen as giving legal advice, which the nonprofit group isn’t permitted to do.

“It certainly opens up our agency for risk” of losing its credentialing as a government-approved credit counselor, said Kathy Perron, Momentive’s president.

Perron said settlement conferences also are time-consuming, sometimes lasting an entire workday, and it wouldn’t be cost-effective for Momentive to use its 12 counselors in settlement work.

Stephanie Reeve, manager of the Indiana Foreclosure Prevention Network, said she doesn’t agree with Momentive’s conclusion that settlement counseling amounts to legal advice.

The Foreclosure Prevention Network referred 400 people to the Neighborhood Christian Legal Clinic for help in August, overwhelming its counselors, who can handle only about 125 clients a month, said Chris Purnell, staff attorney with the nonprofit Indianapolis group. His staff handles the most imminent foreclosures first, he said, while others must wait a month or longer for an appointment.

Private attorneys also can represent homeowners, though most don’t have money to pay legal fees. That led the state to set up a statewide program this year to train lawyers in foreclosure prevention law, hoping many will represent homeowners for free, as part of a lawyer’s professional obligation to offer 50 hours a year of free legal advice.

So far, fewer than 1,000 attorneys statewide have gone through the training.

“There are a lot of issues with the new state law. The main problem I see with it is we don’t have lawyers and facilitators” to represent homeowners in the settlement conferences, said Marion Superior Court Judge Cynthia Ayers.