FY 1998 - 2003 Strategic Plan
Partnerships

HUD cannot assume sole responsibility for the general welfare and security of the Nation and the health and living standards Americans require. The Department of Housing and Urban Development Act (42 USC 3631, et seq.) stated:

"...establishment of an executive department is desirable to . . . assist the President in achieving maximum coordination of the various Federal activities which have a major effect upon urban community, suburban or metropolitan development

Discussed below are some examples of partnerships currently active within the Department.

Brownfields Initiative

As part of the President's Brownfields Initiative, HUD provides monies in competitive economic development grants to communities to redevelop contaminated Brownfields after they are cleaned up. This inter-agency effort is coordinated with the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Department of the Treasury.

An impediment to economic development and jobs are the Brownfields sites in the older industrial cities and small towns. The GAO estimates that there are some 130,000 to 425,000 contaminated sites throughout the United States. Many of these sites have potential for economic development because of their strategic location, but because of fear of lawsuits because of contamination, owners are reluctant to develop them.

A partnership has been developed to address this problem. HUD and EPA are two critical components of this partnership. EPA will provide grants to communities for site assessment and redevelopment planning and expanded support for revolving loans to finance Brownfields clean up efforts at the local level. HUD's primary function is to focus on developing the sites to return them to productive uses that create jobs and to address the economic development needs of communities in and around these sites. In addition to the creation of jobs, recycling the non-reforming contaminated property is essential to the revitalization of cities with large areas of contamination.

Housing Working Groups

Housing believes strongly in partnering. From 1993 through the present, there have been 33 working groups with hundreds of participants. We are proud of the work that has been done to date and have confidence that these groups will continue to contribute to the achievement of our objectives.

Two Working Groups should be especially noted:
• The GSE Advisory Working Group, which provides a forum for discussion and information sharing on regulatory and partnership activities involving Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

• The Affordable Lending Working Group, which discusses the performance of affordable housing loans, including a definition of affordable housing lending, whether or not there is and would be a risk issue and how that risk may be managed effectively.

In addition, there are several Multifamily and Single Family Working Groups which encourage communication and provide Housing with a wealth of resources.

Single Family Working Groups include:
• Title I Property Improvement Program Outreach Working Group
• Title I Manufactured Home Loan Working Group
• (K) Purchase/Rehabilitation Program Outreach Working Group
• Single Family Mortgage Insurance Underwriting Outreach Working Group
• Housing Counseling Working Group

Multifamily Working Groups include:

• Audit Working Group
• Subsidy Layering Guideline Working Group
• Budget-Based Section 8 Working Group
• Prepayment/Preservation Working Group
• Asset Management Working Group
• Enforcement Working Group
• Mortgagee Working Group
• Bond Refunding/Refinancing Group
• Tax Law to Preserve Low-Income Housing Working Group
• Section 202/811 Working Group
• Fair Housing Working Group
• Cooperative Housing Working Group
• MF Housing Consultant Fee Working Group
• Assessing Non-Profit Capacity Working Group
• TRACS Working Group
• Multifamily Small Property Insurance Working Group

FHEO, Housing and Voluntary Compliance

Section 809 of the Fair Housing Act requires the Secretary of HUD to "work out programs of voluntary compliance" with persons in the housing industry and others. HUD plans to accelerate its efforts to promote voluntary compliance by promoting "best practices" among housing lenders and voluntary agreements with housing industry groups.

FHEO and Other Partnerships

HUD is also promoting the establishment of national and local partnerships, which bring natural allies together to address housing issues of common concern. Partnerships develop strategies and actions that remove barriers to fair housing choices and opportunities.

HUD will expand partnerships with housing industry groups by executing and renewing formal partnerships with the housing industry or other groups designed to affirmatively promote fair housing.

Public and Indian Housing

Transformation of Public Housing is not limited to physical demolition and reconstruction of uninhabitable public housing. It also helps build communities. PHAs are working in partnership with experienced public and private sector developers to create privately owned, economically integrated developments. These developments include public housing by leveraging other resources, so that public housing benefits from market incentives for good maintenance and management.

PIH and the Communities

HUD has proposed authorizing legislation that would encourage Housing Authorities to partner with local welfare and employment agencies in order to facilitate resident involvement in self-sufficiency programs. These include:

• Authorization of a Welfare to Work Certificates program that would grant tenant based assistance resources to Housing Authorities and welfare agency collaboratives. This proposal would provide much needed additional assisted housing and coordinated self-sufficiency services to families while generating and testing replicable models of best practices to Housing Authorities nationwide.

• Encouraging PHAs to use best efforts to develop cooperative agreements with local welfare agencies.

• Authorizing a new PHMAP indicator on PHA efforts to coordinate and promote resident involvement in self-sufficiency programs.

CPD and the Communities

A key strategy for CPD has been to reduce citizen alienation by strengthening citizen participation requirements in all of its programs. The plans for some 72 Empowerment Zones and Enterprise Communities and the over 1000 Consolidated Plans for States, entitlement communities and consortia all over the United States were developed with strong citizen participation. Field Offices evaluate each Consolidated Plan annually in terms of the adequacy of citizen participation.

There are thousands of State and local governments and non-profits all over the United States which have entered into partnership to address the needs of homeless persons. Many of these partnerships are metropolitan-wide or are coordinated at the State level.

There are some 524 participating jurisdictions throughout the United States which are the primary public partners for the HOME program: 346 metropolitan cities, 83 urban counties, 95 consortia and 52 states including the District of Columbia and the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico. In addition, Community Housing Development Organizations (CHDOs) and other non-profits are local partners under the HOME program. Less than four years after the first funding was made available under the program, there are more than 2,200 CHDOs. Participating jurisdictions have reserved between 22 and 24 percent of the HOME funds for CHDOs in recent fiscal years.

There are over 10,000 subrecipients receiving funds from the CDBG program which are partners in the community development process. Many of these provide housing rehabilitation.

Technical assistance activities under the HOME and CDBG programs have been largely decentralized to the Field Offices as an instrument for improving the performance of our State, local and non-profit partners.

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