Meeting With HUD Secretary

As part of the National Coalition for the Homeless Board meeting, we had the privilege of meeting Department of Housing and Urban Development Secretary Shaun Donovan.  He attended the meeting on Sunday afternoon before flying out of Washington.  Attending with the HUD Secretary was long time staff member Mark Johnston who is the director of special populations. 
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Busy Week

National Low Income Housing Coalition Conference

I was in Washington DC for the National Coalition for the Homeless Board meeting and then attended the National Low Income Housing Coalition conference. It is difficult to come back after five days in DC. So, I have been extremely busy with preparation for answering the homeless recovery funds--no posts this week. But I have dug out, and now have a minute to write. The Sunday before the conference was an all day briefing with housing coalitions throughout the country. All are experiencing funding problems with the states trying to balance the budget with funding traditionally reserved for poor people. The conference started on Monday April 20, and was informative and helpful. A brief review:

Stan Collender, a federal budget expert and former Roll Call columnist and comedian, opened the conference. He gave us good context for the conference talking about this unique time in our history. This is the one year that the Congress will be willing to pass a budget in the negative. Don't expect that next year or anytime in the future. He broke down some of the myths about the budget and gave us some context. The most important statement that caught everyone in the audience was that we all have a real messaging problem with affordable housing. Collender does polling and said that affordable housing groups have done a poor job in convincing the public that housing is a part of the infrastructure, jobs and leads to spin off development. Most people believe affordable housing helps the individual, but does not translate to the bigger picture. This is a huge problem, and every poverty group in America needs to start talking about this perception problem.


Barney Frank,a representative from Boston to Congress and chairman of the House Finance Committee, spoke to the lunch time crowd. Rep. Frank has become the target for the Right wing pundits as the cause of the financial collapse. They point to his support of Fannie Mae or Community Re-Investment Act for the reason for the collapse of housing. They point to his support of the Bush Administration toxic relief program or on and on making him the villian. The speech received a lot of coverage from the major media, but I don't think he made news with the speech. Rep. Frank dispelled many of the myths, and explained how most of the subprime lending did not come from CRA regulated banks. He talked about many of the proposals that he and his collegues are working on to address this housing crisis:

• A subprime lending regulatory bill.
• They will find a way to fund the National Housing Trust Fund.
• Increase FHA backed lending.
• Tenant protections for renters facing foreclosure.
• A Section 8 reform bill to fix the housing voucher program.
  
• They will work to preserve all affordable housing including Public Housing.
• Finally, a restriction on the securitization of loans.
  

All of this while passing a budget and keeping the plane in the lane. Rep. Frank took some questions and then answered questions from the media outside the ballroom.

NLIHC published a great book at the conference on all the housing issues facing the United States. They go through the history of an issue, and talk about their position on potential piece of legislation. NLIHC Director, Shelia Crowley went over the major issues that the Coalition is actively working on passing. The big items at the forefront of their agenda were: more money for the Housing Trust Fund, foreclosed renter protection, and a 200,000 voucher increase in the Housing Choice (Section 8) voucher program.

I got to attend a few interesting workshops especially the future of Public Housing. Maxine Waters staff, Charla Ouertatani, was great. Ms. Ouertatani said all the right things about Public Housing and seemed to have a great understanding of the problems. She talked about a requirement of 1 for 1 replacement of all public housing that are taken down. A dropping of many of the barriers put in place to keep people out of housing, increasing tenant protections, and more resident involvement in the decision making.

HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan was a breath of fresh air with a full understanding of the problems facing America and taking a lead role in the cabinet. For about 20 years, the HUD Secretary was relegated to second tier cabinet member and spent most of their time on non-housing related issues. Donovan seems to be ready to take on the problems facing the United States in the housing sector. From the 20 years of underfunding all the subsidy programs to the abuses in the loan industry, Donovan has a great deal of work ahead. He has four years of no sleep and a great deal of pressure to succeed.

Finally, we got to hear from the Domestic Policy Council Director, Melody Barnes, who looked at the broader picture of poverty in America. She put in context that health care, education reform, job development must fit into the affordable housing solutions to the problems facing this country. She mentioned a few taboo subjects including rental housing, which were not uttered for the last eight years within the White House. Overall, one of the better conferences that I have attended, and well worth the expense.

Brian Davis
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Worst HUD Secretary in History Steps Down

Good Riddance!!!

The Wall Street Journal is reporting this morning that Housing and Urban Development Secretary Alphonso Jackson is stepping down today. This is welcome news for America's homeless and those living in subsidized housing. He came in with such promise as a former Public Housing Director and then proceeded to dismantle public housing in the United States. Jackson just did not understand this job, and became the worst HUD secretary in the 40 some year history of the post. Here are some lowlights of his career:

• His biggest failure is New Orleans rebuilding. He eliminated public housing in New Orleans and has yet to build back any subsidized property. The one bright spot is that when people say we need smaller government and there is no reason to have a strong government we can point to New Orleans as the outcome of this policy. Government can rebuild a community like we did after the San Francisco earthquake unless we have neutered the government to the point that it is no longer able to function.
  
• He rewarded his friends and tried to punish those who disagreed. He bragged about withdrawing a contract from a contractor who had complained about Bush. He also held the Philadelphia Housing Authority hostage until they rewarded a piece of property to his friend.
  
• He attempted to starve public housing agencies to death.
  
• He left us with nearly $3 billion in underfunding in the Section 8 Project Based Housing program leaving hundreds of thousands of building owners scrambling to figure out how to pay their mortgages. This is a problem that the next administration will have to address.
  
• He was asleep at the wheel with regard to the foreclosure crisis. HUD owned property from foreclosed housing are mounting in most communities, and the HUD Secretary was baffled by the problem.
  
• Because of the foreclosure crisis and housing instability, tax credit projects in the United States are teetering. These projects make housing slightly more affordable to lower income people then the market. It is less attractive for investors to put money into these properties with the housing market in decline. Again, we heard the crickets chirping from the HUD building in DC when we asked about these problems in our local community.
  
• He pushed this silly and offensive "chronic" homeless initiative on the rest of the country while at the same time reducing affordable housing to families. Jackson pushed for cutting the homeless funding pie among more groups without increasing the size of the pie. In a time of increased homelessness this only lengthened the stay in shelters by those populations not in style anymore like families and non-disabled adults.
  
• He has refused to take a position on any pending bill in Congress as announced at the Cleveland City Club discussion from a couple of weeks ago.

There are so many problems with Mr. Jackson we could dedicate an entire blog to the woes of HUD. Poor people expect harsh treatment by Republican administrations. It is always worse when someone of such promise who comes out of the Public Housing sector stabs his former constituency in the back. Jackson had all the right background, but failed miserably and we declare our worst HUD Secretary ever.

Brian
Posts by Northeast Ohio Coalition for the Homeless staff and Board