Secretary Tells Mayors: You Designed A HUD That Works

By Eugene T. Lowe

Speaking at the closing plenary lunch on Friday at the 68th Winter Meeting, Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Secretary Andrew Cuomo tailored his remarks around President Clinton’s State of the Union Message the night before. The Secretary said: “as the President said, the State of the Union is not good; it is extraordinary. It is a tremendous American success story.”

Asserting that the success is reflected in the cities, Secretary Cuomo said: “And when you look at the success we’ve made in the cities you have to say that we have been the engine that has been driving this economy. Just a few years ago they talked about whether or not cities had a future, whether cities were a creature of the past rather than a beacon for the years ahead. And what a difference we have made, and what a difference we have demonstrated. Central city unemployment is down from 8.5 percent in 1992 to 5 percent. People are investing in cities like never before.”

For the first time ever the majority of central cities families own their own home.. The Secretary said that for so many years Detroit was the city people pointed to “when they wanted to say that cities were a relic of the past”, but now from the good work of Mayor Dennis Archer the city has a “beautiful future.”

 “Cities have restored their place in the American economy, in the American spirit, in the American soul. Not that cities are what they were. They used to say to me, Mr. Secretary, are cities back? Cities are not back. That is not the right question.”

We cannot be “what we were”, Secretary Cuomo said . “Cities were different. Cities were industrial capitals, were in a different place in a different economy. But cities restored to a place of progressivity and a place of contribution and culture and enterprise and dynamism, yes, we are more than ever before. Why? Because the mayors have brought the cities back.”

HUD has also played a role in the restoration of the cities. And this has happened “not because we had any great ideas here in Washington, but because we knew the one common truth, which is we should listen to the mayors and do what the mayors wanted done.”

After seeking the advice of the Conference’s Executive Director J. Thomas Cochran, and being invited to Key West Leadership meeting, Secretary Cuomo said that he brought a blank yellow pad, and asked, “what do you want HUD to do for you? Tell me how HUD should work? And we took that plan, we took the mayors’ vision, and we remade HUD in that vision.

“The HUD that exists today is the HUD that you said you wanted. It is the partner. You designed it. You made it. You said, don’t give me mandates; give me a menu. Don’t decide from Washington; let me decide what I need. And it’s working. It really is working.”

The Secretary told the mayors that 300,000 jobs have been created in the cities. HUD has taken down and rebuilt public housing which fits into the community. HUD has also provided more homeownership through the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) and through regulatory policies for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

“Last night, during his State of the Union message, the President set the bar higher as he always does”, the Secretary said. “ How do you take this progress, how do you take this great economic engine and now invest in the places that haven’t been doing as well so you’re stronger overall. 

“How do we do that as a nation? When you look at the chances that remain, the cities tend to be the home of many of those challenges.”

Public education, income equality, economic transformation and businesses transforming themselves from the manufacturing industrial to the high-tech are the challenges of the cities, the Secretary told the mayors.                   

“We’re building on the same template that the President laid out last night, which is the mayors know what needs to be done. It’s our job to get you the tools and get you the resources to do what you need to do. That’s what the State of the Union said.

“To sum it up simply, this will be the best HUD budget proposed in the past 12 years. Every program in HUD in this State of the Union and the President’s Budget that will follow, every program in HUD getting the more funding than it did last year. That will give you the tools that you need to do what you need to do.

“The CDBG program, which is the mainstay of what we do at HUD, getting you the block-grant funds, will go up effectively $250 million dollars. The Home program goes up $50 million dollars. Housing vouchers, Section 8 vouchers. We have the highest need for affordable housing in history, 120,000 new Section 8 vouchers.

“The New Markets Initiative, bringing that economic energy to the cities left behind; tax credits, cash grants, new markets, and the APIC, America’s Private Investment Companies; a new round of empowerment zones, and more money for fair housing.”

Commenting on the new challenge taken up by cities to end violence with guns, the Secretary referred to the Wall of Death unveiled during the Winter Meeting with the names of 3,000 victims who died by guns since Columbine. He said that President Clinton and HUD were also partners in the effort to end gun violence, and that HUD will join the 28 cities bringing suit against the gun manufacturers to make guns safer. 

During a morning meeting at the White House, President Clinton told the mayors that if he had one wish before leaving office, it would be to make America one America. The Secretary said: “To me that is such a profound message because we have really met so many challenges. We have done everything that they said couldn’t be done.

“The only question now is, can we really meet the question posed to us when we formed this nation? It was really the premise of the nation. We said it was a bold challenge that the premise of this nation was that we were going to take people of different races, colors, and creeds and we were going. to make them one nation. It had never been done before, but we said we could do it. We have not fully answered that question, and that question underlies all of these issues.

“When you talk about public education, you talk about income inequality, you talk about housing, you talk about city versus suburb it always comes down to the question of one America and race. 

“If the question is, can we live together, can you become a majority minority nation and succeed, you’re going to see that answer in the cities. We are the test tube to prove this experiment of the American democracy. The answer must be yes. The answer will be yes, opportunity for all, justice for all. “E. pluribus unum,” the founding fathers said. Let us forge one out of the many. That’s the story of the new American city, and that’s our challenge.”