Following last week's dismal reports on the U.S. housing market's July performance, the Obama administration indicated over the weekend it's ready to pour additional money into the hole of debt and unemployment where many homeowners currently find themselves. In the offing: emergency loans for the jobless and government assistance in home refinancing.
But will Read More
Shaun Donovan looked very much at ease during his Jan. 13 confirmation hearing in the Dirksen Senate Office Building. The 42-year-old leaned forward onto a green-clothed table in front of the Senate Banking Committee, eloquent and gracious in his answers, sharp and timely in his policy points, an apparent shoo-in to be secretary of Housing Read More
The Read More
The appointment was announced in Mr. Obama’s weekly radio address this morning (video here).
Mr. Donovan, commissioner of Read More
Friday morning's New York Times seemed to suggest that David Bistricer's (and Bruce Teitelbaum's) second bid for Starrett City might have a chance. Indeed, it was all about how Mr. Bistricer was enlisting the help of ministers to take his case to the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development, which holds the Read More
Last week, no less than one Cabinet secretary, two Congressmen and two Senators vociferously and publicly chastized the $1.3 billion buy of Starrett City in eastern Brooklyn. Clipper Equity won the bidding in early February, prompting many to ask: How could the landlords ever turn a profit by keeping the apartment complex affordable? Sen. Read More
Did those poor (rich) guys at Clipper Equity know what they were getting themselves into? Even George W. Bush is piling on. The press office for U.S. Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Alphonso Jackson is e-mailing the following statement on Starrett City: "This transaction has the potential to threaten New York City's low-income Read More
Sen. Chuck Schumer has joined a suddenly growing chorus of critics who think Starrett City's days as a bastion of affordable housing are decidedly numbered. The senior New York Senator said on Monday that new owner Clipper Equity, which offered $1.3 billion last week for the Brooklyn complex, will have to evict thousands of Read More
Later this morning, Eliot Spitzer and Andrew Cuomo will be discussing Cuomo's transition into the attorney general's office. In addition to whatever process issues they'll be talking about, I'm wondering if they might touch on a couple of outstanding policy matters, including the question of how Cuomo will handle the pesticide lawsuit Spitzer filed Read More
"Just two months after he left HUD in order to make a run Read More
"No one's backing down on Read More
A reader noted that the massive Times story today about the troubled loan program that HUD offered while Andrew Cuomo was in charge wasn't much of a timely piece of news. Much of the original reporting on this had hit newspapers around the time Cuomo ran for governor...in 2002. But the issue got major Read More
The Public Advocate just repaid the city four years' worth of reimbursements for using a city employee as a chauffeur. The Times takes a look at a loan program plagued with fraud while Andrew Cuomo was HUD secretary. Spitzer wants to boost the level of school aid the city gets from the Read More
"In August 2000, Holley, New York, opened the Andrew Cuomo Canalway Trail, built from a $1 million HUD grant under the Canal Corridor Initiative. The trail is only Read More
