By Eugene T. Lowe
September 27, 2004

Two former Secretaries of the Federal Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) — one Democrat and one Republican — have joined together in a bipartisan effort to make housing part of the presidential campaign and beyond. Democrat Henry Cisneros, Secretary of HUD during the Clinton administration, and Republican Jack Kemp, the housing department's Secretary during the administration of George Prescott Bush, joined with Democrat Nicolas Retsinas, Director of the Joint Center for Housing Studies at Harvard University, and Republican Kent Colton, former CEO of the National Association of Homebuilders, in a forthcoming book that "reasserts housing as a national priority and ask that the federal government assume its place at the table partnering with states, localities, and both public and private sector organizations to address housing issues throughout the nation."

The special preview report of a book that will be released is titled, Opportunity and Progress: A Bipartisan Platform for National Housing Policy. In a press statement releasing the book, Cisneros said, "The modern day zeal for partisanship is counterproductive, often acrimoniously so. Most often when we have achieved successful housing programs it has come through bipartisan compromise. The President and members of Congress have a great opportunity before them to achieve more effective long term housing policy."

The authors organize the national housing policy around twelve recommendations. Some of these include:

• Strengthen the current administration's policy for ending chronic homelessness by continuing to fund new units of permanent supportive housing, while assuring the renewal funding for the rental and operation of those units. Hold states and localities responsible for using resources for demonstrable results.
• Encourage communities to eliminate regulatory barriers by linking funding incentives with federal transportation programs, and the HOME and CDBG programs to increase the production of workforce housing. Encourage local and state efforts to eliminate barriers, and promote the formation of coalitions of public, private, and nonprofit organizations to facilitate barrier removal.
• Enact a flexible federal homeownership tax credit addressing the income and wealth constraints of low-income borrowers. Such a tax credit should be allocated to and administered by the states, drawing on existing structures and mechanisms.
• Expand existing federal programs to encourage employer-assisted housing programs. Encourage the GSEs to continue to tailor mortgage products to employer-assisted housing.
• Establish a national standard for predatory lending through federal legislation. Define predatory lending by distinguishing legitimate sub-prime lending from predatory lending, and defining high cost loans with appropriate standards.
• Lastly, establish a new mission paradigm for the government'sponsored enterprises. A menu of ideas are outlined that could be considered as a part of this paradigm, but the suggestions are not intended to be additive. Rather, they set forth a range of ideas that could be considered in establishing a new framework that will support the GSEs broad mission of providing liquidity and stability to the U.S. housing finance system while at the same time supporting affordability and meeting the needs of hard-to-reach market segments.

In addressing the report's call for setting aside political differences to produce more housing, Jack Kemp said: "From our beginning as a nation, we have defined progress by articulating a vision of what we yearn to be — and acting on it. Our actions in support of housing opportunity and homeownership to implement this vision will help mark our progress as a nation."