Principles to Guide Housing Policy at the Beginning of the New Millennium (original) (raw)

Principles To Guide Housing Policy at the Beginning of the Millennium

2001

The 1990s were a tumultuous time for Federal housing policy. The decade began with deep divisions in the housing community over how to deliver housing assistance. For the first time in recent history, Federal budget cuts in the mid-1990s essentially froze the number of households that received housing assistance. At roughly the same time, the continuing existence of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) was itself in doubt, and in 1995 the New York Times Magazine published a lead article with the title "The Year That Housing Died." However, as the new millennium begins, the situation has changed dramatically. Not only is Congress no longer seriously questioning whether to disband HUD, but, in response to a record-setting economic expansion and internal reforms within the agency, Congress also has substantially increased HUD's budget. In marked contrast to the beginning of the past decade, remarkable consensus exists among housing policymakers and ...

America's Affordable Housing Crisis: A Contract Unfulfilled

American Journal of Public Health, 2002

For many poor Americans, having a decent home and suitable living environment remains a dream. This lack of adequate housing is not only a burden for many of the poor, but it is harmful to the larger society as well, because of the adverse effects of inadequate housing on public health. Not only is the failure to provide adequate housing shortsighted from a policy perspective, but it is also a failure to live up to societal obligations. There is a societal obligation to meet the housing needs of everyone, including the most disadvantaged. Housing assistance must become a federally-funded entitlement.

A Review of “Housing policy in the United States, 3rd edition”, By Alex Schwartz

International journal of housing policy, 2015

What should be done? Goetz makes several suggestions, the thrust of which is that public housing should be rehabilitated and replaced, not demolished. The recognised failures of public housing, he says, largely reflect mismanagement and insufficient resources, rather than a lack of social mix. Goetz argues that 'although the discourse of disaster dominates discussions of public housing, the reality is that in most places it worked-and still does work'. The evidence he presents, though, leaves a rather different impression: that much of it was characterised by concentrated poverty and crime, but that residents were attached to and valued their homes even so. For an academic book, this is a real page-turner: deftly and passionately written, with a strong narrative. It is recommended for students of urban studies and housing, or for anyone interested in the politics of race and housing in the USA.

Housing in the broader context in the United States

Housing Policy Debate, 1995

Housing is central to participation in the economic mainstream, yet housing policy has been fragmented by competing, if not contradictory, goals. This article proposes an expanded policy that incorporates a stronger link between housing and economic inequality. Through examples, it argues that housing policy should be a tool for economic development, strengthening families, and building community.

Federal Housing Administration in the New Millennium

Journal of Housing Research, 2000

The first challenge in attempting to predict the future of the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) is to understand why it is still here. No other depression-era mortgage-market institution has survived without substantial modification. We conclude that its survival has depended on its ability to invent new purposes for itself. For example, it changed from a replacement for failed prívate mortgage insurance using economic soundness asan insurance criterion toan innovator in high-risk lending based on an acceptable risk criterion. FHA has developed special programs to serve the needs of specific groups. We believe this pattern of change in purposes also is the key to FHA survival in the new millennium. We review potential future purposes for FHA and find that several-particularly, maintaining mortgage credit flows in declining regional housing markets-will require a substantial FHA presence in mortgage markets. This is important because it implies that a marginalized FHA cannot serve severa! of the important purposes that it is likely to be asked to serve in the new millennium. Accordingly, we believe that FHA market share will be maintained and perhaps expanded in the new millennium, even with increasing competition from conventionallending.

Comment on" Housing Policy, Mortgage Policy, and the Federal Housing Administration

Authors Jaffee and Quigley focus their chapter on an analysis of federal programs that provide insurance and housing credit guarantees. After a description of a variety of federal government programs, including the federally-chartered government sponsored enterprises (GSEs) Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, they concentrate specifi cally on the changes and challenges to the mortgage insurance and guarantee programs managed by the Federal Housing Administration (FHA). They offer specifi c, policy-oriented recommendations to bolster the FHA's declining market share. After the Great Depression, the FHA pioneered the introduction of the thirty-year self-amortizing fi xed rate mortgage, the standard mortgage that prevailed in the United States for decades. The FHA and Fannie Mae, and its predecessor the Home Owners' Loan Corporation (HOLC)-a federal entity-succeeded in reviving a mortgage market then in collapse due to the prevalence of "bullet" loans. After World War II, loans insured by the FHA lost market share to similarly structured nongovernment or "conventional" loans. The FHA's role evolved to serve lower income households who lacked the 10 percent down payment required by the conventional prime market. With the explosion (now implosion) of subprime over the past decade, FHA's market share decreased even further until 2008 when, in response to the collapse of subprime, FHA market share increased to its current 25 percent level. The ongoing subprime mortgage market crisis (similar to the Great Depression, centered on loans that require refi nancing at a time when fi nancial markets seize up) makes the role of the FHA newly relevant. 1 A large segment of the Jaffee and Quigley chapter is devoted to a comprehensive and very useful description of all federal housing programs. The chapter sets out an historical and contextual analysis of the evolution of housing programs over time, pointing to the elimination of supply-side public housing in favor of demand-side housing vouchers. The chapter contrasts this-and other directly funded programs that have lost federal support-with the growth of programs indirectly funded through federal tax expenditures, including the homeowner deduction and the low income

The Federal Housing Administration in the New Millennium 371

2000

The first challenge in attempting to predict the future of the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) is to understand why it is still here. No other depression-era mortgage-market institution has survived without substantial modification. We conclude that its survival has depended on its ability to invent new purposes for itself. For example, it changed from a replacement for failed prívate mortgage insur-ance using economic soundness asan insurance criterion toan innovator in high-risk lending based on an acceptable risk criterion. FHA has developed special programs to serve the needs of specific groups. We believe this pattern of change in purposes also is the key to FHA survival in the new millennium. We review potential future purposes for FHA and find that several-particularly, maintaining mort-gage credit flows in declining regional housing markets-will require a substantial FHA presence in mortgage markets. This is important because it implies that a marginalized FHA cannot se...