Don't Look To H.U. D. For Leadership On Housing Issues
On the occasion of the 40th anniversary of the creation of the Department of Housing and Urban Development, an article by Bruce Katz of the Brookings Institution points out the obvious for everyone working on housing issues--innovative programs and policies are not coming out of H.U.D. Mr. Katz was the Chief of Staff for HUD Secretary Henry Cisneros in the early 1990's.
It's not as if housing isn't a serious issue. According to the nonprofit Center for Housing Policy, more than 14 million households in the country—one out of every eight—now pay more than 50 percent of their income for rent or mortgage payments and/or live in physically dilapidated housing.
Leadership on housing issues is largely being done by other agencies in D.C. and on local and state levels by both governmental agencies and community activists. Katz points out that six times the number of families get the Earned Income Tax Credit from the Treasury Department than there are families getting a HUD housing voucher. He also describes the Low Income Housing Tax Credit (also a Treasury program) as "the principal driver of subsidized rental housing production."
As for more local programs: "states, cities and counties, for example, are experimenting with a range of housing innovations including Housing Trust Funds, progressive zoning efforts and regulatory reforms that promote infill and density. Business and university leaders in places like Philadelphia, Long Island and Chicago are implementing new employer-assisted housing efforts to woo new employees and reward existing ones."
Katz longs for an administration and a Congress that cared enough about housing to provide leadership on the issue. All the programs he mentions are important, but no one is doing the kind of systematic planning that would pull all these efforts together and put a real dent in the problems with America's housing.
Victory Starts In The Streets
Predatory Lenders saturate neighborhoods with advertisements on television, radio and direct mail. To fight back, we have to go door-to-door in neighborhoods threatened by these loan sharks.
Here's two great examples in the news recently of groups beating the streets:
Housing Opportunities Made Equal of Richmond, Virginia declared September 30th, "Sign Swiping Day" in the city. They organized folks to go throughout neighborhoods taking down advertisements for predatory lenders off of phone poles and other public places.
College students in Dayton, Ohio helped the
Miami Valley Fair Housing Center distribute over 1,000 information packets door-to-door in neighborhoods with high rates of mortgage foreclosure. The information would direct them to call a foreclosure hotline set up by the housing center.
Of course, the follow up that community organizers need to do is get these homeowners educated and angry enough to fight for change, not just passively accept social services--but it's a start.
Mortgage Brokers, Predatory Parasites.
The New York Times article
"With Mortgages, Instant Wealth for Middlemen" begins to cast a light on the little pissants that start the predatory lending cycle of pain--mortgage brokers.
The problem is that the article is schizophrenic, at times lionizing these capitalist assholes as "scrappy entrepreneurs", then pointing out the predatory lending that is the heart of their business.
The money quote:
"Like real estate agents, mortgage brokers are paid a percentage of the total transaction, about 1.5 percent on standard 30-year loans and up to 3 percent or more on less creditworthy loans that require more labor, according to Mr. Olson, the consultant. More often than not, the fee comes from the lender instead of the borrower. It is an arrangement with a built-in conflict of interest. . . a broker who steers a borrower to a more expensive loan can snag a bigger fee for himself."
The focus of the article, the owner of one of these loan shark firms in Illinois has an hour-long radio show every week. One epidode covered by the article relates his advice to a credit-card burdened homeowner: refinance out of a 30-year fixed mortgage and into an adjustable rate mortgage paying interest only for now.
THESE GUYS ARE THE ENEMY!
A Different Kind Of Mayoral Forum
Yesterday, ARISE and the Self-Advocacy Network sponsored another event in the seemingly endless round of Mayoral Forums designed to bore and frustrate even the most civic-minded Syracusan.
This forum was different. (Full disclosure--my wife organized this forum for ARISE. Go Beata!)
The isues discussed are not the typical ones at a mayoral forum, not much talk of Destiny or other economic development projects. It centered on the issues important to folks with disabilities--housing and accessibility in particular.
One good organizing touch at the end--all three candidates were given hard hats emblazoned with "I Will Work For Access" and urged to work for all of those folks who lack housing of their own--either wasting away in a nursing home or forced to live in inaccessible buildings as virtual shut-ins.
Miserable by Design
The Bush administration is conservative.
Families displaced by Katrina need housing assistance.
Conservatives prefer housing vouchers for private market housing to government-run public housing.
The Bush Administration refuses to use vouchers and will create Katrina mobile home ghettoes to house displaced families.
Why the logical disconnect? According to columnist
Paul Krugman of the New York Times, Bush doesn't want to use vouchers because he's afraid they may be successful, hampering his efforts to downsize and eliminate voucher assistance.
The money quote:
"Mr. Bush can't avoid helping Katrina's victims, but he doesn't want to legitimize institutions that help the needy, like the housing voucher program. As a result, his administration refuses to use those institutions, even when they are the best way to provide victims with aid. More generally, the administration is trying to treat Katrina's victims as harshly as the political realities allow, so as not to create a precedent for other aid efforts. As the misery of the hurricane's survivors goes on, remember this: to a large extent, they are miserable by design."
