Almost 5,000 homeowners have permanently lowered their mortgage principal under an Obama administration program to prevent foreclosures.

The effort has reduced principal debt by an average of $70,000 per borrower, the U.S. Treasury Department and Department of Housing and Urban Development reported today in their monthly scorecard on foreclosure-prevention efforts.

Today’s scorecard was the first to report progress on the agency’s principal-reduction effort, which began in October.

More than 21,000 borrowers have won temporary writedowns of their principal since the effort began. Not all have been able to make their mortgage payments, however, and more than 5,000 have dropped out, the Treasury reported.

In its summary of overall loan modification activity, the Treasury reported that nearly 25,000 homeowners permanently lowered their monthly mortgage payments in May, bringing the total to 633,459.