By Eugene T. Lowe
February 9, 2004

The Community Development and Housing Committee met January 22 and discussed several issues, including homelessness and hunger, homeownership, barriers to affordable housing, and new technology designed to assist in locating affordable housing in cities.

Committee Chair Charlotte Mayor Patrick McCrory opened the meeting with an introduction of new mayors, and a challenge to the committee to engage the speakers with discussion after each presentation.

Cedar Rapids Paul Pate and Nashville Mayor Bill Purcell gave a review of the results of the 2003 Conference of Mayors-Sodexho Hunger and Homelessness Report released in December. The report once again found a significant increase in both hunger and homelessness in 25 cities, including Cedar Rapids and Nashville.

Pate said in his remarks: "I think we must continue as communities to redouble our efforts to join together in a multi-jurisdictional approach that will stand the test of time. I believe we can end homelessness and the hunger in our communities in the next 10 years by working together."

Purcell in his response said: " I think actually on this issue we are more together now in this nation than we ever have been before. When this process started, it was a fairly lonely report and a lonely issue for, I think, many, many local leaders as well as many who, in the non-profit sector, had been focused on this from the perspective of shelters or the perspective of food banks. We-re now at a time when we have, as Mayor Pate indicated, major national corporations. In this case, especially Sodexho, focused with us as a partner in making sure that the facts are only shared but also then that we-re in a position to respond community by community."

For the first time, the Hunger and Homelessness received corporate sponsorship from Sodexho, a leading provider of food facilities management in North America. Joan R. McGlockton, Vice President for Corporate Affairs for Sodexho told the mayors that Sodexho has formed a foundation, the Sodexho foundation, "which is geared toward looking at issues of hunger. We work with public agencies. It's really sort of a public-private model in which we work with various organizations to try to advance the mitigation of this issue." She said that her company has created several programs such as "Feeding our Future" and "Campus Kitchen." In the company's signature program "Feeding our Future" children are served who are at risk of hunger during the summer. In the "Campus Kitchens Program, Sodexho works with D.C. Central Kitchen and "student volunteers on college campuses and student volunteer organizations, and team these with our personnel and with external local community organizations, to prepare and deliver food to the needy, to coordinate food donations and also to provide job training."

Steven B. Nesmith, Assistant Secretary for the Office of Congressional and Intergovernmental Relations spoke about a variety of HUD programs, including the administration's goal to eliminate chronic homelessness, the American Dream Down payment Program which will assist low-income families become homeowners, and a number of Federal Housing Administration (FHA) programs. With respect to President Bush's goal to increase minority homeownership, Nesmith said, "Early in his administration, President Bush responded to the call of the homeownership gap in America, particularly in the minority community, which a lot of the U.S. Conference of Mayors have been partners with HUD. President Bush has made a bold commitment to increase minority homeownership by 5.5 million by the end of this decade. HUD has created a blueprint partnership with the U.S. Conference of Mayors and other industry groups who are in the housing and financing mortgage industry."

A Bryant Applegate, Director of HUD's America Affordable Communities Initiative described HUD's effort to help communities identify and overcome regulatory barriers that impede the availability of affordable housing. He said that regulatory reform through the affordable communities initiative was a priority of the administration. Applegate emphasized that "when I say affordable homes, I mean decent and attractive single-family or multi-family developments that help bring economic stability to communities and when we say all levels of government, that includes the federal government as well as states, counties, and cities." He told the mayors of a Federal Register notice, which sought comment from the public on HUD's existing "regulations that may create barriers to affordable housing." He said that HUD would be hosting a national regulatory barrier research conference this April " to determine what type of studies should be done over the next few years on this topic." In addition, HUD has established a webpage of HUD.gov/affordable communities, which is a clearinghouse on regulatory barriers information. Finally, Applegate said that HUD was preparing a "brochure that describes the common barriers and proposed solutions. He encouraged the mayors to hold public workshops on regulatory barriers.

Van Gottel, CEO and founder of the nonprofit corporation Non-Profit Industries, Inc. briefed the mayors on technology that his company has developed which serves the affordable housing continuum from homelessness to workforce housing. On the website, socialserve.com helps "landlords list properties at or below HUD's fair market rental rates." Gottel said, " We help workforce tenants, tenants who have Section 8 vouchers, tenants who are just looking for safe, decent and affordable housing locate the landlords who have those properties." He told the mayors that the service is free for landlords and tenants, and is paid for by cities and collaborations within the communities. The service was started in Charlotte in 1999 and now serves Kansas City, Independence, St. Louis, Denver, and the State of Arizona Department of Housing.