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Building the American Dream: HUD Accomplishments Fact Sheet
Increase Homeownership
- Announced the goal of creating 5.5 million new minority homeowners
by 2010 and unveiled America's Homeownership Challenge,
which calls on the public and the private sectors to work together
to achieve this goal.
- Hosted the first White House Conference on Increasing Minority
Homeownership at which HUD launched its Blueprint for the
American Dream Partnership -- an unprecedented public/private
initiative harnessing the resources of the government with those
of the housing industry to increase homeownership opportunities.
- Proposed the $200 million American Dream Downpayment Fund
to help 40,000 low-income families annually make the move into
homeownership.
- Unveiled a major effort to reform the Real Estate Settlement
Procedures Act RESPA), aimed at making the homebuying process
less expensive and less complicated for consumers.
- Empowered 550 low-income families to become homeowners through
HUD's Section 8 Program by allowing the use of up to a year's
worth of vouchers toward a down payment.
- Endorsed 1.3 million FHA single-family mortgages, surpassing
the national goal of 1.1 million endorsements.
- Provided a record $329 billion in mortgage capital for the
FHA, Veterans Affairs (VA) and other housing programs.
- Stepped up efforts to combat predatory lending by targeting
unscrupulous lenders, pooling the resources of the federal government
and helping agencies work together to fight abusive lending practices.
- Developed 16 rules to address deceptive or fraudulent lending
practices, including the new Appraiser Watch program, improvements
to the Credit Watch program that will identify problem loans and
lenders earlier on, new standards for home inspectors, and a proposed
rule to prohibit property "flipping" in FHA programs.
- Reduced to 19 from 44 the minimum number of basis points that
issuers of federally guaranteed mortgages must set aside for servicing,
a move that will cut the cost of federally insured mortgages and
increase homeownership rates.
- Provided $20 million in homebuyer education to assist future
homebuyers in the process of buying, and keeping, a home.
- Boosted homeownership opportunities for police officers and
teachers by improving management controls over HUD's Officer Next
Door and Teacher Next Door home sales programs.
Promote Affordable Housing
- Proposed a single-family affordable housing tax credit that
will provide developers with $1.7 billion for building an estimated
200,000 affordable new homes in distressed areas over the next
five years.
- Made commitments for 201 new construction or substantially
rehabilitated projects, with over 39,000 units totaling $2.8 billion
in mortgage loans.
- Initiated a 25 percent increase in the per-unit limits for
FHA multifamily mortgage insurance programs.
- Placed the FHA multifamily insurance program on a stable, break-even
footing.
- Lowered the mortgage insurance premium from 80 basis points
to 57 basis points, saving individual developers $25,000 annually
in mortgage insurance costs - savings that can be passed on to
property residents.
- Unveiled the Regulatory Barriers Clearinghouse, a Web-based
system that encourages builders and developers to share ideas
for overcoming regulatory barriers that too often block affordable
housing production.
- Preserved affordable housing in New York City through an unprecedented
$168 million partnership between HUD and the local government
to rehabilitate more than 500 properties.
- Initiated reforms to improve the delivery of affordable housing
units and to hold HUD, as well as past grantees and new applicants,
accountable for project readiness and performance.
- Reformed the HOPE VI program to encourage accountability and
project readiness to better revitalize severely distressed public
housing properties.
- Reduced significantly the HUD inventory of Real Estate Owned
(REO) properties by almost 50 percent.
- Increased fair housing enforcement by completing 1,010 enforcement
activities, or 126 percent of the stated target of 800.
- Reduced the percentage of aged fair housing complaints from
85 percent to 29 percent of total inventory.
- Expanded initiatives and partnerships aimed at increasing accessible
housing opportunities for persons with disabilities and promoted
design and construction requirements for accessibility in all
multifamily housing, including apartment buildings, condominiums
and cooperatives.
- Educated and trained housing industry professionals on their
responsibilities to provide accessible housing to persons with
disabilities.
- Awarded a grant of nearly $900,000 to the International Code
Council to ensure that more apartments, condominiums and other
housing are built to be accessible to people with disabilities.
Strengthen Communities
- Awarded $2.7 billion in funding to the Empire State Development
Corporation and the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation to
provide assistance for property and businesses damaged by, and
economic revitalization related to, the September 11 terrorist
attacks. An additional $700 million was provided through the President's
emergency fund.
- Provided housing assistance to 187,390 households, an increase
of 8.7 percent over the 2001 level of assistance.
- Encouraged economic development and affordable housing through
HUD's Community Renewal Initiative. The 41 Renewal Communities
and eight new Empowerment Zones created will have access to $22
billion in tax relief to create jobs, grow businesses, promote
renewal and build houses.
- Reactivated the Interagency Council on Homelessness to better
coordinate the efforts of 18 federal agencies in addressing the
needs of homeless persons and set the national goal of ending
chronic homelessness by the end of the decade.
- Announced the largest amount of homeless assistance in the
nation's history, more than $1.1 billion to fund thousands of
local housing and service programs around the country.
- Approved 52 policy recommendations to enhance the management,
coordination and delivery of HUD programs/services in the Southwest
Border Region (SWBR), colonias and migrant/farmworker communities,
and announced the Colonias Gateway Initiative, which seeks
to develop affordable housing and infrastructure, and foster economic
opportunity in the colonias.
- Worked with the U.S. Department of Justice to enforce a prompt
eviction policy for those who engage in drug activity on or near
public housing properties.
- Awarded nearly $95 million to protect children and families
from health and safety hazards in the home, a $26 million increase
since Secretary Martinez took office.
- Initiated Operation LEAP (Lead Action Elimination Program)
to leverage additional private sector resources for lead hazard
control, such as manufacturer donations of lead-free building
components, no interest or low interest lead-based paint home
improvement loans, and temporary housing for those who need to
be relocated during lead abatement.
- Conducted an exhaustive review of HUD regulations to identify
barriers to faith-based participation in department programs and
proposed the removal of unwarranted restrictions, making it clear
that faith-based organizations receiving HUD funds have every
right to hold, express and practice their faith, so long as they
do not use HUD funds to support inherently religious activities.
- Authorized approximately 3,100 local housing agencies to institute
an "open-door policy" for faith-based organizations
to provide social services to public housing residents.
- Conducted an exhaustive review of HUD regulations to identify
barriers to faith-based participation in department programs and
launched broad-based consultations on appropriate legal standards
for church/state interaction.
- Improved lines of communication and information sharing with
faith-based and community groups by, among other actions, creating
the first CD-ROM of all SuperNOFA (Notice of Funding Availability)
materials, including program descriptions, grant applications
and a message from the Secretary.
Improve Management, Accountability and Ethics
- Initiated full implementation of the President's Management
Agenda for agency reform.
- Launched a new Management Plan process, initiated for FY 2002,
to provide a unifying means for HUD organizations to produce strong,
integrated results and to improve overall compliance, standards
and efficiencies.
- Expanded ethics training and review processes, while increasing
ethics enforcement activities.
- Took aggressive enforcement action against participants in
HUD programs who engage in fraud or otherwise fail to follow applicable
requirements.
- Launched a major President's Management Agenda effort to reduce
the $3 billion in subsidy errors in HUD rental assistance programs.
- Published the second in an ongoing series of periodical studies
to measure the accuracy of income and rent determinations in all
HUD rental subsidy programs.
- Terminated HUD's drug elimination program that duplicated the
work of other Cabinet Departments.
- Developed and implemented a new general ledger system for FHA,
as a first step in a multiyear plan to replace FHA's commercial
accounting system with an integrated financial management system
that fully complies with federal budgeting, accounting and system
requirements.
- Completed a major enterprise-wide realignment resulting in
a streamlined organization with fewer organizational layers.
- Drafted HUD's first Human Capital Management Plan to address
the human capital issues facing the Department.
- Prepared the requirements for a Comprehensive Workforce Analysis,
which is vital to successful succession planning, the carrying
out of mission-critical functions and addressing skill gaps/deficiencies
in mission-critical occupations.
- Completed a Resource Estimation and Allocation Process (REAP)
baseline for estimating resource requirements and prioritizing
staffing allocations by program and office.
- Implemented the enhanced HUD Intern Program, designed to maintain
a constant flow of promising, talented individuals into HUD's
workforce.
- Held HUD's first ever Training Awareness Week and National
Management Meeting for Headquarters and Field employees.
- Expanded training programs through HUD's Training Academy and
launched HUD's Virtual University (HVU) that provides HUD employees
with over 1,600 Internet courses.
- Developed in advance of most federal agencies the Department's
first E-Government Strategic Plan.
- Increased the emphasis on awarding performance-based service
contracts (PBSC); HUD awarded $75.3 million in PBSC obligations
in 2001 and $80.4 million in 2002.
- Developed and implemented in advance of most federal agencies
a comprehensive Departmental Continuity of Operations Program
(COOP) to ensure that critical HUD programs and services are provided
during any national emergency or catastrophic event.
Content Archived: January 20, 2009
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U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development 451 7th Street S.W.
Washington, DC 20410
Telephone: (202) 708-1112 TTY: (202) 708-1455 |
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