Introduction

Shortly after taking office in 1997, Secretary Andrew Cuomo announced that to fulfill its mission of helping revitalize America's communities, the Department of Housing and Urban Development would have to reinvent itself. Within the first year, HUD's Management Reform effort made great strides in demonstrating that HUD can be reformed and can effectively deliver programs and services to communities. HUD's organization is continuing its management reform efforts. We are continuing to streamline our operations and consolidating within and across our programs, all to better serve taxpayers and communities.

HUD recognizes that truly viable, sustainable communities are developed by the hard work, vision, and dedication of the people who live and work within them. HUD can support these efforts with critical resources and broad national objectives, but it is the community—government, non-profit groups, residents, faith-based organizations, educators and others—with its own unique expertise and energy, which must design and carry out strategies that best address the needs and opportunities.

Much of the $26.2 billion HUD administers is directly targeted to State and local governments and public housing agencies to implement necessary housing and community development programs. HUD believes these resources should promote comprehensive, coordinated approaches to addressing housing and community development. Economic development and welfare-to-work initiatives, community development, public housing revitalization, homeownership, assisted housing for targeted purposes, homelessness assistance, supportive services and Section 8 Housing Choice Vouchers can work better if linked at the neighborhood and community level. In recent years HUD developed the Consolidated Planning process to assist communities undertaking holistic, community-based approaches. Before accessing millions of dollars in HUD assistance the local government convenes public meetings to design an overall community strategy for spending these federal funds.