BILL BLOCK APPOINTED AS REGIONAL ADMINISTRATOR FOR REGION X

SEATTLE - U.S. Housing and Urban Development Secretary Shaun Donovan today announced that President Barack Obama has appointed Bill Block of Seattle as HUD Regional Administrator for Region X, which includes the states of Alaska, Idaho, Oregon and Washington state. He succeeds Mary McBride of Olympia whom Secretary Donovan recently named HUD's Assistant Deputy Secretary for Field Policy and Management. Mr. Block assumed his new duties on Monday, November 18th.

Mr. Block is an attorney whose private practice has focused on complex real estate transactions on behalf of both private and public entities. In 2005, then-King County Executive Ron Sims asked him to serve as Director of the Committee to End Homelessness. In this capacity he coordinated the efforts of some 70 local government, non-profit and for-profit entities, faith-based communities, philanthropies and formerly homeless people in implementing the County's 10 Year Plan to End Homelessness in Seattle/King County, During his tenure some 5,000 housing units were funded for homeless and at-risk individuals and families in the County.

Mr. Block also has served as Chair of the Seattle Housing Authority Board of Commissioners, President of AIDS Housing of Washington (now Building Changes), Chair of the Seattle Center Advisory Commission, Chair of the Low Income Housing Levy Oversight Committee and board member0 of the Downtown Emergency Service Center and the Workforce Development Council of Seattle/King County.

In 2012, the Washington State Housing Finance Commission honored Mr. Block with the Margaret M. Sevy Affordable Housing Lifetime Achievement Award. "Thousands of people over the years will probably never know Bill Block," The Seattle Times editorial board observed upon his retirement from the Commission in the summer of 2012, "but they will be recipients of housing care for their children, counseling, and other benefits because of him. In short, they will have a better life because of Bill Block."

As HUD's Northwest Regional Administrator, Mr. Block will help manage and coordinate the delivery of HUD programmatic and financial support in housing, community and economic development to more than 70 housing authorities, 227 Federally-recognized tribes and Alaskan native villages, 59 state, county and local governments and more than 400 projects serving the homeless in Alaska, Idaho, Oregon and Washington state and the provision of subsidized housing to more than low-income 180,000 households in Alaska, Idaho, Oregon and Washington state.

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