While increasing demands are being made, and high expectations are now held for all government agencies, HUD continues to pride itself on outstanding customer service. That's especially true at the field office level where the programs MUST work in real-time to improve the quality of life for those in need and give them a strong hand up.

Recently, Gary Kerr, a HUD employee who typifies the Buffalo Field Office's strong emphasis on customer service, was singled out for honors by the Chautauqua Home Rehabilitation & Improvement Corporation (CHRIC). At a special dinner in Dunkirk NY, Kerr, a Financial Analyst in CPD, was recognized for his hard-won success in helping CHRIC administer the CDBG program in the city. This was a particularly daunting task: as one of the smallest entitlement communities in the country, Dunkirk had experienced significant problems trying to make their block grant work.

Kerr tackled the problem head-on: he gave CHRIC and its client city the unvarnished bad news when necessary, but then helped find solutions to the problems he found. From a rocky beginning, the relationship between Gary Kerr and CHRIC evolved to the point where his criticisms, creativity, and patience were singled out for special recognition. The agreement among all involved in Dunkirk's CDBG program was that Kerr made it easier to help the people the program is designed to serve. One participant compared it to the old proverb: we feed a hungry man by giving him a fish, and he eats for one day; but if we teach him how to fish, we feed him and his family for a lifetime. Congratulations to Gary Kerr for teaching his clients to fish!

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Earlier this year, the director of the Denver Multifamily Hub received the Sister Mary Lucy Downey award for his contributions to affordable housing. Sister Mary Lucy was the Executive Director of the Denver Archdiocese Housing Committee and, for 22 years, was a strong advocate for housing for the disadvantaged, particularly the elderly. This is the third year the award has been given, and HUD's Larry Sidebottom shared the honors with Monsignor Tom Dentici.

The Archdiocesan Housing Committee provides affordable housing to those in need and also ministers to the homeless. In selecting Larry for this year's award, Anna Strobl, current Executive Director of the Housing Committee, said that award recipients always were people Sister Mary Lucy had worked with and admired, and said that Larry definitely passed the test. The two previous winners of the Sister Mary Lucy Award were Dennis Coughlin, who underwrote bonds for tax credit properties for the Archdiocese, and J. Michael Farley, an attorney and long term board member.