House Financial Services Chair Hensarling Seeks Ideas for HUD’s Future

On September 11, during the week of HUD’s 50th anniversary, House Committee on Financial Services Chair Jeb Hensarling (R-TX) issued a press release calling for the public to offer ideas on poverty and housing affordability to his Committee. He asks for ideas to be submitted by November 1.

“Despite myriad federal housing programs and initiatives, decent housing remains unavailable or unaffordable for far too many today just as it did five decades ago,” the press release states. “That is why I am calling on all interested advocates, organizations, and ordinary citizens to join the effort to modernize the delivery of federal housing assistance and submit their ideas on how to restructure and rebuild HUD for today’s generation.”

Specifically, Chair Hensarling is looking for proposals and recommendations on restructuring HUD to maximize its organizational efficiency, innovative approaches to address housing affordability that respect individual rights and promote individual responsibility, methods of targeting housing assistance to address generational cycles of poverty, and examples of successful implementation of such proposals at the local, national, or international levels.

As previously reported in Memo (see Memo, 9/8), Mr. Hensarling is expected to develop legislation this fall that will make unspecified changes to federal low income housing programs. NLIHC will submit suggestions. 

See details on how to submit ideas at http://financialservices.house.gov/news/email/show.aspx?ID=EDYQM7V4NSLBZMGACQYP6NPRG4