New Publication Calls for Increased Role for HUD

A new publication to be released in January calls on President-Elect Barack Obama to create a White House Office on Metropolitan Policy and an increased commitment to housing within his first 100 days in office.

The publication, Change for America: A Progressive Blueprint for the 44th President is being published by the Center for American Progress. The group was founded by John Podesta who is serving as head of Obama’s transition team. The book includes a chapter on the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). The chapter’s authors, former HUD Secretary Henry Cisneros and his former Chief of Staff Bruce Katz, call HUD a “legacy government – an overly compartmentalized agency administering programs and policies more suited to an earlier era, with information systems that impede rather than facilitate customer service and accountability.”

The authors suggest the new HUD Secretary focus on four key tasks in his/her first 100 days in office. They are:

1. Recruit the “best and the brightest” to work at HUD particularly for the positions of deputy secretary; assistant secretary for housing/FHA, public and Indian housing, fair housing and equal opportunity, and community planning and development;
2. Respond aggressively to finally address the mortgage crisis and restoring the Gulf Coast destroyed by Hurricane Katrina;
3. Aggressively establish budget priorities in fiscal years 2009 and 2010; and,
4. Establish a White House Office of Metropolitan Policy.

They argue HUD has not been a central player in the mortgage crisis. To address the mortgage crisis they argue that the new president should create a mortgage-crisis working group headed by the secretaries of HUD and Treasury to review all actions related to the current financial situation. They argue this group should offer a series of recommendations in three areas: regulatory and counseling; restoring the positive role of FHA, and recommending actions to address the fallout from the foreclosures. Second, they feel correcting the situation in the Gulf Coast is a major issue the HUD secretary should address.

They call for the HUD Secretary to submit an aggressive budget which includes 100,000 additional vouchers, creating a new $500 million grant program to preserve older assisted housing, restore funding for the HOPE VI, CDBG, public housing programs, and create an Office of Sustainable Housing to align housing policy with the goals of climate change and energy security.

The White House Office of Metropolitan Policy is envisioned to facilitate local collaboration in areas such as economic and workforce development, transportation, energy and housing. The paper calls for this office to design and implement “a new performance partnership with metropolitan areas.” The authors envision this office working closely with the heads of the departments of HUD, EPA, Transportation, Labor, Commerce, treasury and Education.

Obama has stated he will create an Office of Urban Affairs in the White House. There is speculation Katz will be named director of that office.

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A Number of Players Vying to Become Next HUD Secretary

A number of names are being considered to be selected as the new Secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). Here is a brief summary of some names being considered according to news reports and rumors circulating in Washington.

Jesse Jackson Jr.: Rep. Jackson (D-IL) is seeking to replace President-elect Barack Obama in the Senate. Jackson has told friends he is interested in becoming HUD Secretary if he is not selected by Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich to replace Obama. Jackson, son of Civil Rights Activist the Reverend Jesse Jackson, represents Chicago’s Second Congressional District. Prior to his congressional service, Representative Jackson served as the National Field Director of the National Rainbow Coalition. In this role, he instituted a national non-partisan program that successfully registered millions of new voters. He also created a voter education program to teach citizens the importance of participating in the political process, including how to use technology to win elections and more effectively participate in politics.

Shirley Franklin: She has been the mayor of Atlanta, Georgia since 2001. Never having previously been an elected official, Shirley Franklin became the city’s first woman mayor, and the first African-American woman to serve as mayor of a major southern city. On 8 November 2005, she won re-election with more than 90 per cent of the vote. She has drawn rave reviews for her work in balancing the city’s budget in her early tenure as mayor although her decisions did alienate many including some of her supporters. In 1991, Ms Franklin joined the Atlanta Committee for the Olympic Games (ACOG) as the top ranking female executive, serving as senior vice-president for external relations. In this position she was instrumental in the development of such legacies as the Centennial Olympic Park and served as ACOG’s primary liaison with various labor unions, civil rights groups, neighborhood/community organizations, and environmentalists.

Antonio Villaraigosa: Villaraigosa was elected mayor of Los Angeles in a runoff in 2005. He became the first Hispanic elected to be mayor of that city. He has been elected to a number of positions serving as a state lawmaker, a speaker of the California State Assembly, and a Los Angeles City Councilman. He was a co-chair of Hillary Clinton’s campaign and has extensive ties to labor unions. He is a Los Angeles native.

Adolfo Carrión, Jr.: He is currently the Bronx Borough President. He has an urban planning degree and worked for a period of time in the planning department’s Bronx office. If not appointed to a position in the administration, he is expected to run for the City Comptroller’s office. Affordable housing and job creation have been the center piece of his work in the Bronx.

Nelson A. Diaz: Diaz was General Counsel at HUD in the Clinton administration where he focused on reforming public and mixed-use housing programs. He was as judge for the Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas from 1981 to 1983 – the first Hispanic judge in Pennsylvania history. He was appointed administrative judge by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, where he saved the state millions of dollars annually and used a nationally recognized Pro Tem Judges Program to reform the court’s case flow efficiency. He was a White House Fellow, serving as Special Assistant to Vice President Walter Mondale, and was also the Executive Director of the Spanish Merchants Association of Philadelphia. He was served as City Solicitor of Philadelphia. Both there and at HUD he was instrumental in increasing the number of women and minority lawyers in both organizations.

Saul N. Ramirez, Jr.: Ramirez is currently the executive director of the National Association of Housing and Redevelopment Officials (NAHRO) in Washington, DC. He was the Deputy Secretary at HUD during Andrew Cuomo’s tenure at the department. He is a former mayor of Laredo, Texas and spent over 20 years as an owner of an insurance business.

Manuel A. Diaz: Diaz is in his second term as mayor of Miami. He is currently president of the U.S. Conference of Mayors. He pursued a massive overhaul of the city’s finances at a time when the city was bankrupt, held junk bonds and was under a state oversight board. The city is now sound financially and has an A+ bond rating on Wall Street. The city has also increased its production of affordable housing by leveraging public/private investments toward 3500 affordable units since 2001 at a combined public and private investment surpassing $600 million with a billion dollar investment pledged by 2010. He is an active proponent of green building across the city and this year, presided over a ribbon-cutting ceremony for the City’s first LEED-certified affordable green home.

Frederick B. “Bart” Harvey: Recently elected to the board of the Federal National Mortgage Association, Harvey retired in March 2008 from his role as chairman of the Board of Trustees of Enterprise Community Partners, a provider of development capital and technical expertise to create affordable housing and rebuild communities. He joined Enterprise in 1984, and a year later became vice chairman. He also was Enterprise’s chief executive officer from 1993 to 2007. Before joining Enterprise, Mr. Harvey served in various domestic and international positions with Dean Witter Reynolds, leaving as managing director of Corporate Finance.

White Appointed Leader of S&P’s Public Finance Housing Group

Standard and Poor’s recently announced the appointment of Valerie White, as team leader for Standard and Poor’s Public Finance Housing Group. White joined Standard & Poor’s housing group in 1999, most recently after more than eight years at the New York City Housing Authority, where she served as chief of the Statistics Department, executive policy assistant for the Board of Commissioners and General Manager, and deputy director for Asset Management and Private Market Operations. She holds both a B.A. in Communications and a J.D. from Fordham University, as well as an M.S. and Certificate in Organization Development from New School University.

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Groups Agree on Broad Objectives for Housing

Lost in the furor of the current economic climate is rental housing. Elected officials have marshaled billions of dollars to assist homeowners, banks, other financial service institutions and are now considering assistance to the auto industry. While all this money is being printed and tossed around, low and moderate income households are the forgotten victims of this housing crisis.

Using its own research and a review of state and local studies and news stories, the National Low Income Housing Coalition (NLIHC) reached the following conclusion about the current foreclosure crisis:

• Multi-unit buildings are a significant share of the foreclosures in some areas potentially displacing many households at once;
• A majority of the displaced by foreclosure are renters who find themselves in more tenuous living arrangements in their new environs;
• A majority of the households seeking foreclosure counseling earn less than 80 percent of area median income;
• High-poverty and socio-economically disadvantaged neighborhoods are where a high concentration of foreclosures are located; and,
• No one appears to be immune to the crisis. Communities of all types are being affected the degree to which is determined by their history, laws, housing stock and population.

With this back drop more than 30 organizations met during the summer and agreed to a policy framework on the future of public housing. Public housing is typically considered the housing of last resort. Yet according to advocates for public housing, those programs have been consistently under funded. Making matters worse, public housing authorities (PHAs) have lists in the tens of thousands of families waiting to be selected for an available public housing unit or to receive a voucher. These lists do not include the thousands of others who can not get on the waiting lists because PHAs closed them knowing they will never be able to meet the demand.

The groups (see list below) which met over the summer represent a broad spectrum of the advocates for affordable housing. Brokered by the Council of Large Public Housing Agencies (CLPHA), the groups reached agreement on five objectives to restore public housing to the point where it can provide affordable housing to those who need it. The objectives are:


• Attract new private and public capital investment to ensure safe, high-quality housing for residents by eliminating the substantial capital backlog and providing for future needs;

• Change the program structure to facilitate adequate and reliable revenues, including offering PHAs the option to transition individual properties to other program models;

• Maintain a commitment to decent, safe housing at rents affordable to the current mix of residents for the long term in communities that advance our nation’s fair housing and civil rights goals;

• Redefine the relationship between the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and PHAs through sensible regulation that achieves both accountability and the flexibility to address local conditions.

• Enable PHAs to expand partnerships with others who share our commitment to serve low-income families, seniors, and persons with disabilities and reframe our mission in ways that attract partners who can provide access to new resources and responsible environmental stewardship, and economic and educational opportunities that enhance choice and the quality of life.

The objectives represent a major step forward in attempting to reach a consensus by groups which at times are on such opposite sides of issues it makes the Hatfield-McCoy feud child’s play. However, there are at least four issues which must be resolved and will test the strength of the coalition.

First, HUD needs to be reorganized. The coalition must agree on how the agency will be reshaped which will determine how programs are structured, funded and implemented. There is a lot of talk about the need to change HUD but how that change occurs will put this coalition to the test.

Second, the discussion is too narrowly focused on public housing. Public housing is a subset of the broader issue – the lack of affordable housing, public and private, for low- and moderate-income households. The National Housing Conference (NHC) and NLIHC have conducted a number of studies which attest to the extent of this problem.

Third, the participants of the group were too narrow. Absent from the discussion were the mayors and community development professionals, and lending institutions to name a few. All of these players need to be at the table to discuss the future of affordable housing and HUD since their opinion will carry a considerable amount of weight.

Fourth, there are substantial disagreement on issues which separate the groups. Resident advocates will campaign strongly for the reestablishment of the public housing one-for-one replacement rule which public housing authorities (PHA) vehemently oppose. This rule requires PHAs to replace every lost unit of public housing with another hard unit. There are some advocates who support the creation of regional housing authorities to address the housing needs of families. PHAs also vehemently oppose this. Without some level of compromise on these and other issues, the spirit of the agreement could unravel quickly.

Organizations signing the Framework for the Future of Public Housing

Abt Associates
American Association of Homes & Services for the Aging
California Housing Partnership Corporation
Cambridge Housing Authority
Center on Budget and Policy Priorities
The Municipal Housing Authority for the City of Yonkers
CityView
Council of Large Public Housing Agencies
Consensus Building Institute
District of Columbia Housing Authority
Enterprise Community Partners
Fannie Mae
Housing Authority Insurance Group
Keene Housing Authority
Housing Authority of the City of Los Angeles
Massachusetts Union of Public Housing Tenants
MIA Consulting
National Association of Housing and Redevelopment Officials
NCB Capital Impact
National Organization of African Americans in Housing
New York City Housing Authority
National Housing Conference
National Housing Law Project
National Low Income Housing Coalition
National Housing Trust
Newark Housing Authority
Oklahoma City Housing Authority
Public Housing Authorities Directors Association
Reno & Cavanaugh
San Diego Housing Commission
US Green Building Council
Urban Institute

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Obama Victory No Accident, Offers Many Lessons for the Future

Barack Obama’s victory November 4 marked the end of an era. It signaled the dominance of the World War Two generation and its influence is now over. The victories they won, the conflicts they lived with and the struggles they endured are now part of the past or left to their grandchildren to solve. To the greatest generation, as tabbed by newsman Tom Brokaw, we salute you. But the time has come for your grandchildren and great-grandchildren - the next generation - to assert its greatness.

The accomplishments of our parents and grandparents generation should not be underestimated. This generation survived the Great Depression, won World War Two, ushered in an era of prosperity unmatched at the time in the history of the country, oversaw conflicts in Korea and Viet Nam, endured the upheavals of the sixties, oversaw conflicts in Korea and Viet Nam, saw a president resign due to the Watergate scandal, sent a man to walk on the moon, almost experienced a nuclear war, saw the Berlin Wall come down, witnessed a culture clash which divided the country and experienced a the first attack on US soil since Pearl Harbor in 1941. Finally, this generation saw the rise of the Civil Rights movement which laid the foundation for the election of the first African American man to be President of the United States.

Obama’s election is an accident. It is also not an accident that the first African-American president has an African name. America’s racist past has a pall over its greatness and promises. Anyone who does not believe this country offers a person the opportunity to make the impossible possible was asleep at the wheel on November 4, 2008. God works in interesting ways. Obama’s resounding victory left no doubt that America needs to leave the racial divide behind us. It offers hope for millions – of all races and nationalities – but more importantly lessons all must learn and apply in the future.

First, it is time to stop the hate. This election generated a tremendous amount of pride. Many African Americans of all ages voted for the first time and expressed a pride in America they never felt before. Only a person so extreme callousness does not recognize the special significance of this election. More importantly, it is a time to put aside the racial bigotry and hatred for each other whether it is based on race, religion or ideology. We may take different routes to achieve our dreams but we each have one and should be able to pursue them in an environment based on respect and appreciation for each brings to their community.

Second, the impossible is possible. Obama had the audacity to believe he could become president without catering to the old guards who felt he had to “wait his turn”. Both senators – Hillary Clinton and John McCain – seem to resent the fact this young upstart was challenging what they felt was rightfully theirs. They seemed to have an arrogance of entitlement which reminded me of the mentality of welfare queens before that program was reformed. Both Clinton and McCain belittled his lack of experience but simply could not grasp the depth of his ability to inspire a cross-section of people to his cause. His ability to remain calm during the economic storm – the “October” surprise of this election – demonstrated to the voting public he could be trusted to lead this country during these trying times. After Obama’s victory was confirmed, the tears of so many African Americans said it all. In this country, every one, regardless of race can achieve the impossible. His election is a reflection of the true greatness of this country.

Third, parents must never dampen their children’s dreams. Obama was raised by the Anglo portion of this family who clearly taught him there are no limits to what he can achieve. If he had been raised by his African father’s family, he would not be standing on the brink of being inaugurated President. He would have been reminded, possibly in rather harsh language, that there are certain positions blacks simply don’t apply for. His election is a credit to his mother and grandparents who loved him, nurtured him and instilled the confidence and belief in his abilities.

Fourth, never underestimate the impact your story has on others. The criticism leveled against Obama for the books he wrote were interesting and uncalled. His critics, particularly conservative pundits, were flabbergasted he had the audacity to write two books under the assumption he had not achieved anything. They dismissed his story, denigrated his work experience and made every attempt to sully his character. Obama does have a story and it clearly resonated throughout the world. As a Christian we call this our testimony and God calls us to testify to the things He has done in our lives. While not explicitly testifying to God’s role in his life, Obama did testify to what shape his life and in turn his story helped to shape the life of others. Everyone has a story tell so tell it. As innocuous and inconsequential you think your story is it will impact some one some where.

Fifth, the African-American community, and all communities of color, can no longer allow racism to be an excuse for the problem which plagues this country. Does it still exist and needs to be addressed? Yes, but Obama’s election demonstrates it can be overcome.

Sixth, the world seems to have gained renewed respect for America. While many challenges lay ahead, the world seems to view Obama’s election as a breath of fresh air and could lead to significant gains world-wide. I am not convinced Obama’s greatest foreign policy challenges will come from the Middle East. Do not underestimate the racial implications of negotiations with Arabs. Many Arabs feel disrespected and demeaned by Americans. Sitting across the table with some one who looks more like them may lead to a different set of dialogues which could be productive.

Finally, Republicans need to take their heads out of the sand. American has changed. It is more diverse and less interested in issues that divide and want to come together to solve the issues facing this country. Republicans need to reach out to Hispanics, youth and African American voters with more respect, tolerance and issues which are relevant to those individuals. True or not, they are perceived as the party of angry, white, sometimes racist, individuals with little interest in those who don’t look like them. This election should be a wake up call to Republicans – business as usual will not work.

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Obama Expresses Support for One-for-One Replacement of Units

In an interview published in the September-October issue of the Journal of Housing and Community Development, Presidential candidate Barack Obama expressed support for reinstating the one-for-one replacement requirement. The Journal is a bi-monthly magazine published by the National Association of Housing and Redevelopment Officials (NAHRO).

Obama was the only candidate to respond to questions sent to the offices of each of the presidential candidates in January. Prior to 1996, federal housing law provided that every public housing unit that was demolished had to be replaced on a one-for-one basis with another public housing or equivalent unit. In 1996 this requirement was suspended and later repealed by Congress.

In addition to expressing his support for the one-for-one replacement requirement, Obama said he will restore cuts to the public housing capital and operating funds and community development block grant (CDBG) programs.

The details of Obama’s answers can be found here.

Household Expenses Rise Faster than Income

Findings from a recently released report found all major categories of homeowner expenses increased faster than incomes. The report, Stretched Thin: The Impact of Rising Housing Expenses on America’s Owners and Renters, was released by the Center for Housing Policy, the research affiliate of the National Housing Conference.

The report identified the following increases in household expenses: mortgage payments increased 46 percent; utilities increased 43 percent; property taxes 66 percent; and, property insurance. These increases occurred while incomes rose 36.3 percent. The report also found rental costs increased faster than income. During the same period rents rose by 51 percent while the renters income rose only 31.4 percent.

New York City Losing Affordable Housing Stock

Four percent of New York City’s privately owned subsidized rental housing was lost in 2007 according to a report released by the Community Service Society (CSS). CSS is a 160 year-old institution which utilizes public policy innovations to support poor New Yorkers in their quest to be full participants in the civic life of the nation’s largest city. CSS employs a variety of tools – advocacy, direct service, research and policy analysis, and strategic partnerships – to forge consensus on appropriate policy interventions to facilitate the economic mobility of low-income New Yorkers.

The report, Closing the Door 2008: Subsidized Housing Losses in a Weakened Market, states this loss of housing is slightly less than the average loss of rental units from 2004 to 2006. All of the losses were in low-market areas, primarily in the Bronx with one development located in Manhattan. According to the report most of the units were Mitchell-Lama units. Created in 1955, the Mitchell-Lama program provides affordable rental and cooperative housing to moderate- and middle-income families. There are 101 City-sponsored, moderate- and middle-income rental and limited-equity cooperative developments in New York City, almost 46,000 units.

CSS is calling for a variety of policy recommendations including support for tools to New York City and non-profit organizations to preserve distressed housing; placing Mitchell-Lama apartments under the rent stabilization program; and, preserving and extending the Mark Up to Market program to provide incentives to owners to remain in federally subsidized programs. The Mark Up to Market program allows owners to obtain the comparable market-rate rent levels for all units covered under a project-based Section 8 contract and redistributes the increased cash flow resulting from such rents. These incentives provide owners with an effective tool to recapitalize and preserve their properties as affordable housing

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Foreclosures Open Door To Disorder
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Economic woes mean smaller paychecks
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Up and Down on Main Street
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