Deborah Gore Dean Gives a former insiders take on HUD

If you get an email from me everytime I post something new, then perhaps you recall, my request for comments on what folks think about the future of HUD and what might be some of the most important things to get done in this first year.

Most chose to send me an email rather than post a direct comment here.  But to my surprise, Deborah Gore Dean, found this little ‘ole blog of mine and left a great comment. Mrs. Dean was high up in HUD during the Reagan administration and is now the proprietor of one of my favorite home accesory stores called Gore*Dean in DC’s Georgetown.   Rather than accept it into obscurity under another post, I decided to give it a bit of a spotlight. 

It is nice to read a blog about housing and urban development that comes from such passion for the subject.  You cannot travel to any part of this country where you do not see the need for a housing policy in this country, not to mention the obvious need for the funding for affordable housing and housing assistance.

In Washington, DC, Section 8 tenants (and their children) are living in motels because there are no funds to rehabilitate existing units and no way to build new.  Waiting lists across the country are at the levels now that only those used to institutionalized lifelong assisitance can partake in the Program.  If your need is immediate or short term – the purpose of the program- you are out of luck and on the street.

But you are mistaken if you think that any HUD Secretary can turn that around without Congress acting first.  The current state of the economy is such that it will be very difficult for the President to present the Congress with a budget for HUD that would even approach the funds needed for a long term multi-family build program, increased number of rent subsidies or vouchers; or even an increased multi-family insurance program.

I would venture a guess that the reason HUD has appeared to concentrate only on the single family programs is that they are the only ones that HUD can afford .  That and those programs of home ownership are a stabilizing force for the economy.

But if you understand the Department of Housing and Urban Development and I suspect you do; you know that there are vast differences in the mission of the Department from the GNMA, which is the country’s largest bank to single family, which is a moderate income home ownership tool to Section 8 which is for the poor.  You are pretty much running the gammet of brick and mortar in this country.  And we haven’t even gotten to the Block Grants and urban development subsidies and Fair Housing.

The dollar amounts for HUD even when not operating at any level of efficiency are staggering.  Any plan to turn it around, is going to require POLICY first, then massive funds.  I am not saying this to scare you but it IS the reality.  No funding can or will happen without it being of the highest priority, not of the President  – but of Congress.  To expect anything else is to set up President Obama for failure in this sector.

When the bridge collapsed in the Mid-west last summer; it brought home to the country that our infrastructure had too long been ignored.  Now there are calls for the testing of bridges and towers and the like and eventually a funding program will be established to address them but will another bridge fall while we wait?

That is where we find ourselves in housing in this country now.  Except that our infrastructure fails on a daily basis,- a shooting, a drug sale, a boarded up building.  We are losing the battle with poverty and HUD has no plan.  And as you know, whatever plan comes to be; it will take years to implement.  Luckily, there will be a HUD Secretary who will champion action.  But it is essential to keep the pressure where it can do the most good – on Capitol Hill.

What we should be calling for first- is a National Housing Plan and it should begin with Congressional hearings as to the state of the nation’s housing stock.

And because the nature of housing and urban development are so broad, from poverty programs and government assistance to the Donald Trumps of the world; we should include all ideas and view points.  There will be no housing plan without the support of both parties and a myriad of conjoining interests.

I cannot imagine that it is helpful to be too much on the fringes these days.  Jack Kemp was not a hero. Sam pierce was not the devil.  Cuomo probably meant well.  And the new HUD Secretary will not be the messiah.  And frankly, I don’t think of myself as a cocktail waitressing henchlady- although I might agree that I was not the right person for the job.  Still, if I had to go to Congress tomorrow for the sake of HUD, I would be looking for the Republicans on the Hill that understand the value of housing is in our country, like Stu McKinney and Alfonse D’Amato.

Keep your eye on HUD and perhaps blogs like yours will keep the place honest.  We could have used them in my day.

Deborah Gore Dean

 

Don’t worry, Ms. Dean, keeping folks honest is a part of my schtick here.

Come Tuesday

I have listened time and time again to the stories from my grandparents (who are still alive and good health) being my age during the time of Jim Crow. My grandparents were among the “talented tenth” who went on to get not only a college education but a Masters.  Their life was fascinating and some of the things they were able to accomplish, under what many would view as extreme duress, is impressive.

My grandmother was riveter like Rosie in WWII.  She left the factory and moved to Atlanta–by herself–while my grandfather was at War to pursue her Master of Social Work.  She is demure, my grandmother, and if you are familiar with the history of the black middle class–she  may falsely appear more socialite than independent woman, and more wife and mother from the times of the “best generation”, then capable equal partner.  But perserverance is her middle name.

My grandfather was a talented print man, who because of his color, had limited opportunity to make a career in printing and instead taught it as a vocation in the public school system.  Like many other black folks, teaching was one of the few ways to have a white collar job and secure a future staunchly in the middle class, running the printing press at  the Call and Post in the evenings.   He has a sharp-tongued wit at times. And from some of his stories, it seems his relative fair skin is what  kept him from ending up in a tree somewhere.

It is from my grandparents  purview of American history, that I see the world. It is from their vivid portrayl of the decline of the American dream–first begun in the demise of our urban centers at the precipise of “white flight” and “desegregation”, and further solidified by deindustrialization, that I dedicate my personal and professional time to revitalizing communities.  And it is from this purview, that the last 10 years have made me rethink this personal calling on many an occassion.

When a former community organizer first decided to run for US president, I thought him delusional. When he exceeded expectations in Iowa, I began to listen.  He talked about the importance of our urban centers and creating a poilcy arm that would focus on urban policy. He seemed to understand that the health and wealth of this nation hinged in large part on addressing many of our failures in domestic issues–health care,  encouraging small business, and revitalizing a viable manufacturing base that might actually allow blue collar folks who’s mothers and fathers once were “company men” in factories like Westinghouse and GM an opportunity to use their skilled labor to reach the American dream. It is then that  I began to work for him with “cautious optimism”.

Then he won the primary.

Then he won the presidency.

And now, come Tuesday,  the sun might cautiously shine again.