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The Obama administration is engaged in high-level talks about providing financial assistance to homeowners who've lost their jobs and can't afford their mortgage payments. The Treasury Department held meetings on the subject as recently as Thursday with key stakeholders, according to Laura Armstrong, a spokeswoman for Hope Now, an alliance of non-profits and mortgage servicers, and more discussions are planned. Proposals include getting servicers to let jobless homeowners skip some monthly payments, according to Faith Schwartz, executive director of Hope Now. Another possibility that has been discussed includes grants or loans to temporarily cover part of the mortgage costs for homeowners who become unemployed, says Paul Willen, a Federal Reserve Bank of Boston economist. "Treasury has now brought us all together," says Jack Shackett, Bank of America's head of credit-loss prevention, who is involved in the discussions. "Even if it takes Treasury awhile to get some guidance out,...