As many as one in seven families across America with Federal Housing Administration-backed mortgages will lose their homes to foreclosure in coming years, according to a landmark study by a former executive vice president and chief credit officer at Fannie Mae.

The FHA mortgage program is intended to help low and moderate income families, and first-time purchasers, to buy homes and build equity, but American Enterprise Institute Resident Fellow Edward J. Pinto said the federal agency is “engaging in practices resulting in a high proportion of low- and moderate-income families losing their homes.”