by Christi Parsons
New York City housing commissioner Shaun Donovan is the choice for Secretary of Housing and Urban Development in the incoming administration, President-elect Barack Obama announced this morning.
The role of HUD will be crucial in the days and months to come, Obama said, praising Donovan's record on on expanding access to affordable housing.
Donovan brings "fresh thinking" to the job, "unencumbered by old ideology and outdated ideas," Obama said in his weekly radio address this morning. "He understands that we need to move past the stale arguments that say low-income Americans shouldn't even try to own a home or that our mortgage crisis is due solely to a few greedy lenders."
More families can own their own homes "so long as we're making loans in the right way," Obama said, "and so long as those who buy a home are prepared for the responsibilities of homeownership."
Trained as an architect, Donovan has worked in both the business and non-profit sectors and at HUD during the Clinton Administration, serving as deputy assistant secretary for Multifamily Housing.
He has since worked at Prudential Mortgage Capital Company as managing director of its FHA lending and affordable housing investments, before Mayor Michael Bloomberg named him commissioner of the Department of Housing Preservation and Development in 2004.
Today, he leads the largest municipal affordable housing plan in the nation. The agency's $7.5 billion plan to build and preserve some 165,000 units of affordable housing reached its halfway point this fall.
Donovan has been a visiting scholar at New York University, researching the preservation of federally-assisted housing, and also wrote about housing policy at the Joint Center for Housing Studies at Harvard University. He holds Masters degrees in Public Administration and in Architecture from Harvard University.
In his address, Obama discussed rising unemployment figures and the distress of homeowners, and said he has asked his economic team to come up with a plan that will dramatically increase the number of families who can stay in their homes.
HUD has a big role play in such a plan, though he said the agency's efforts too often have had "mixed results."
"That is why we can't keep doing things the old Washington way," he said. "We can't keep throwing money at the problem, hoping for a different result. We need to approach the old challenge of affordable housing with new energy, new ideas, and a new, efficient style of leadership. We need to understand that the old ways of looking at our cities just won't do."
The solution, he said, entails "promoting cities as the backbone of regional growth by not only solving the problems in our cities, but seizing the opportunities in our growing suburbs, exurbs, and metropolitan areas."
Comments
Unfortunately his first choice, Tony Rezko, is unavailable.
Posted by: Sorry, I had to say it. | December 13, 2008 8:33 AM
He needs to clean up HUD to start. He can start with Kim Kendrick.
Kim Kendrick at HUD should not be holding the office she does. Her solution and response to the Philadelphia scandal speaks volumes about her. A Bush leftover.
US Secretary of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Alphonso Jackson resigned in April 2008. Orlando Cabrera resigned next. Why is Kim Kendrick still at HUD?
Posted by: Duke | December 14, 2008 10:30 AM
Kim Kendrick did nothing wrong regarding Philadelphia; the press and a disgruntled PHA Director tried to smear her good name in that situation.
Posted by: Paul Manchester | December 27, 2008 5:39 PM
Really? Good name. HUD HFEO employees are posting things like "HUD FHEO was designed to enforce housing discrimination, but in recent years under the Bush and Assistant FHEO Secretary Kim Kendrick's administration has turned FHEO into a advocacy agency and police state. The employees are intimidated and threatened to go after Respondent and "make their life miserable" even if they are innocent of discrimination. As a former FHEO employee who was fired for doing his job and questioning the "investigate until no end" mentality of the this hostile regime. Investigators were told that the more you dig (i.e., harass and intimidate) the Respondent, the more "Cause" cases HUD will have or the more money you would squeeze out of the Respondents. Some call it extortion and HUD calls it conciliation." Is this true? Does HUD pursue innocent people to get these so called "Cause" cases?
Also, I don't think anyone other than her typed her response to Orlando Cabrera's email.
Posted by: Duke | January 3, 2009 4:26 PM
And FYI:
Are you the Paul Manchester at HUD that has been studying "Fannie May and Freddie Mac" for HUD with regards to HUD policy for years? If so, nice work.
Wish Alan Spector would blog more:
http://specter.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=NewsRoom.Articles&ContentRecord_id=ad95b30f-f4ce-41e5-3db9-0c0373f121fe&Region_id=&Issue_id=
More Shennanigans:
http://theeprovocateur.blogspot.com/2008/12/shakedown-hud-and-its-cronies.html
Posted by: Duke | January 3, 2009 8:37 PM
january 20th 2009
I HAVE WATCHED ALL THE POLITICIANS,LAWYERS,PROFESSORS,ECONOMIC ADVISORS BANKERS, AND MEDIA PEOPLE DISCUSS AND PRESENT THEIR OPINIONS ON HOW WE GOT INTO THIS FINANCIAL CRISES AND HOW WE MIGHT EXTRICATE OURSELVES FROM THIS PROBLEM AND IT IS MY OPION THAT YOU ALL HAVE NO IDEA WHAT YOU ARE TALKING ABOUT, I KNOW YOU ARE ALL STUDING REAL HARD TO GET UP TO SPEED SO THAT YOU SOUND SOMEWHAT INTELLIGENT BUT NOBODY HAS ASKED ME OR MY CONTEMPORARIES OF HOW TO SELL ALL THESE NON PERFORMING ASSETS AND I HAVE ONLY BEEN SELLING THESE ASSETS FOR 32 YRS SO HOW AND F COULD YOU POSSIBLY TRY TO UNDERSTAND.YOU BUNCH OF ELITIST PIGS I WONT EVEN WASTE PISSING ON YOU,YOU SHOULD START COMMENTING ON THE ONLY REAL SUBJECT YOU KNOW "HIPPOCRACY BECAUSE YOU LIVE IT DAILY.I AM A REAL ESTATE BROKER AND I KNOW ABOUT ALL THE PROBLEMS AND I KNOW HOW TO FIX ALL THE HOUSING PROBLEMS JUST LIKE A SURGEON WHO KNOWS HOW TO OPERATE AND CORRECT A BLEEDING ARTERY BECAUSE HE HAS DONE IT A MILLION OTHER TIMES BEFORE.SO YOU POMPOUS WINDBAGS HOW DO YOU EXPECT THIS LITTLE DUECHE BAG SHAUN DONOVAN WITH LIMITED REAL ESTATE BACKGROUND TO DO ANYTHING EXCEPT CAPITULATE MORE PROBLEMS.
Posted by: philip cataldo | January 25, 2009 2:52 PM