HUD Sec’y Resigns, Questions Linger

Although Housing and Urban Development Secretary Alphonso Jackson cited personal reasons for resigning in April, his departure failed to dispel concerns about his conduct in office that led to ongoing ethics investigations by the HUD inspector general, a federal grand jury, and the Justice Department’s public integrity section.

President Bush has nominated and the Senate has confirmed Steven Preston, head of the Small Business Administration, to replace Jackson.

Jackson’s resignation came as congressional leaders called for his ouster amid allegations that he steered a federal contract toward a South Carolina acquaintance. No charges have been filed, and Jackson—who consistently enjoyed Bush’s support—has denied any wrongdoing. The congressional newspaper The Hill reported that Senators Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) and Patty Murray (D-Wash.) sent a letter to Bush in March, contending that Jackson could not effectively address the subprime mortgage slide.

He was also accused in a lawsuit alleging his reprisal against Philadelphia housing officials for reportedly blocking a land deal with a Bush supporter, according to CNN. And he has been under fire for his department’s handling of the Gulf housing shortage in Hurricane Katrina’s wake as well as his reticence to acknowledge the magnitude of the burgeoning mortgage crisis.

Jackson’s resignation also diverted attention from attempts to find a solution to a $2-billion shortfall in HUD’s Section 8 rental-voucher program, which could lead to many of the 1.3 million families housed by the program to lose their homes, according to some housing advocates. This year, Congress would have to budget $6.5 billion over the administration’s requested amount for housing and community development in order to avoid cuts in core programs for low-income families.

School’s Out (of Money)

The number of home foreclosures nationwide is up 60 percent from one year ago, and it’s not just affecting the homeowner, but children of homeowners as well. According to a report on “NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams,” public schools are taking hits as districts funded by local property taxes experience higher levels of foreclosures.

“It’s going to hurt the bottom line of state budgets in terms of the monies they give to schools,” Douglas H. Palmer, mayor of Trenton, N.J., and president of the U.S. Conference of Mayors, told NBC News.

Local property taxes account for about 30 percent of school funding, according to a recent study commissioned by the U.S. Conference of Mayors. According to the report, California could lose up to $3 billion in property taxes as a result of the foreclosure crisis, and New York State could lose up to $700 million. Sports, advanced placement classes, and much-needed facility repairs could be among the first casualties.

Walkin’ Blues

They say leaving home ain’t easy, but some homeowners in Florida find they have no other options.

More and more homeowners are finding ways to leave their mortgages, hoping to avoid the serious credit damage done by delinquency. These are not homeowners in arrears on their mortgage payments; they simply see a bleak road lined with rising interest rates ahead and want to take the nearest exit.

While Florida has been central in this trend, it’s happening in other states, including California and Nevada.

No financial adviser would ever recommend taking the “walk away” route, but it’s an attractive alternative for some who want to hold their housing fate in their own hands, before the payments increase and the banks take over. Companies like the San Diego-based You Walk Away have opened offices across the country, and are benefitting from an uptick in business.

Watch out for penalties, however. Mortgage lenders Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, to name a few, are unlikely to make available to banks funding for new mortgages—at least for a few years—for former homeowners who have taken this route.

No, Not That Kind of Green

While one of New York City’s newest housing developments will bring in the green in ratables, the project shows that it can be easy being environmentally green as well.

In March, David & Joyce Dinkins Gardens, an exclusively green, $19.5-million, 85-unit affordable-housing complex opened in Manhattan’s Harlem. It’s part of Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s plan, first announced in 2003, to build 165,000 units of affordable housing for 500,000 residents over the next decade. The completion of Dinkins Gardens, which includes 24 units for youths aging out of foster care, could signal a trend toward more eco-minded housing solutions.

The block-and-plank building uses innovative energy and water-efficient designs, mechanical systems, and equipment; non-toxic and recycled material; a green roof; rain-water harvesting; permeable paving; and natural day lighting—all strategies to demonstrate that green affordable housing can be cost-effective in dense urban neighborhoods.

Co-developed by Jonathan Rose Companies and the Harlem Congregations for Community Improvement (HCCI), the building—directly across the Harlem River from Yankee Stadium—is named for the former New York City mayor and his wife. It is being touted as a new model for affordable housing, according to Rose, because it offers social services and job training. HCCI, a nonprofit interfaith consortium of more than 90 congregations, owns and operates the complex.

Housing Perpetuates Racial Segregation, Group Says

A Dallas-based civil-rights group is charging the largest affordable-housing rental program in Texas with perpetuating racial segregation and asking the courts to require an equal number of tax-credit projects in non-minority areas as there are in minority areas.

The suit, filed against the Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs in March by the Inclusive Communities Project Inc., claims that the department has allowed too many housing tax credit-financed projects to be built in urban areas with high levels of crime and poverty.

According to ICP President Elizabeth K. Julian, areas like the mostly white Dallas suburbs have a high proportion of apartment complexes that do not accept Section 8 rental vouchers. “The issue of segregation in the tax-credit program is obviously not a news flash,” Julian told Shelterforce, “and this is just another example of the greater problem.”

Julian said that her organization has not sued any landlords in the past three years for rejecting vouchers, but she would not rule our that option. For now, “this is about addressing the role of the state and the tax-credit program as a barrier of being able to find high-quality housing,” Julian said.

A House Divided?

Couples seeking divorce are finding that breaking up is, indeed, hard to do— particularly during the recent slump in the housing market. Janell Weinstein, a family-law attorney and legal analyst discusses the legal ramifications of divorce on at firstwivesworld.com, and she’s saying that increasing numbers of couples are waiting to physically separate until their house is sold. “You may be forced to live together for some period of time, after the divorce, until the house is sold,” she says. “It may be impossible for you to imagine living with your spouse after you’re divorced, but it’s a realistic expectation that you must consider.”

Blocking the ‘Bayonne Box’

Newark, N.J., is one of a handful of Garden State cities that is enjoying something of a housing renaissance, but city government and some residents don’t like the look of the housing boom.

Much of the redevelopment has ushered in a type of housing known as the “Bayonne Box,” named after the nearby city of Bayonne, where entire post-World War II neighborhoods were built in the three-story, vinyl-clad fashion. The style is appealing to developers because of its pre-fab construction and adaptability to the narrow lots, in this case conforming to the zoning in Newark’s historic Ironbound district.

But some Newark officials, including Mayor Corey Booker, took umbrage at the Bayonne Boxes as a threat to the area’s historic character. “We didn’t uniformly attack the Bayonne Box,” says Carlos Rodrigues, vice president and New Jersey director for the Regional Plan Association, the organization that worked with the city in crafting new zoning more in line with the neighborhood’s historic character. Bayonne Boxes were replacing handsome industrial buildings, according to Rodrigues, who advocates the practice of adaptive reuse, where old buildings are retrofitted to accommodate modern needs. The low-density nature of the Bayonne Box was another problem, particularly for an urban area near a major transit hub, Rodrigues says.

And what about Bayonne? It’s a middle-income town known for its well-kept late 19th- and early 20th-century housing stock, and for newer dwellings built since the 1960s, where officials are quick to set the record straight. “The term is unrepresentative of Bayonne, and we’re very proud of the fact that our town has a lot of variety to it,” says Joseph Ryan, the city’s public information director. Bayonne, it should be noted, is going through its own renaissance, where former industrial sites are being redeveloped for commercial and residential purposes. With so much going on, Ryan said the town takes loose terminology in stride: “We’ll be fine.”