From: BUILDER December 2004
Posted on: December 6, 2004
Housing Policy

Bipartisan Approach

A new book published by Harvard University's Joint Center for Housing Studies calls for cooperation on housing issues.

By:: Steve Zurier

A BIPARTISAN GROUP OF FOUR LEADING HOUSING authorities recently published a housing policy treatise that calls for the political parties to put partisan politics aside to solve the nation's affordable housing crisis.

The book, Opportunity and Progress: A Bipartisan Platform for National Housing Policy, was published by Harvard University's Joint Center for Housing Studies and co-authored by Henry Cisneros, Jack Kemp, Kent Colton, and Nicolas Retsinas. Cisneros served as HUD Secretary during the first Clinton administration; Kemp was HUD Secretary under President George H. Bush; Colton is senior scholar at Harvard's Joint Center for Housing Studies and was the NAHB's CEO from 1984 to 1999; and Retsinas is current director of the Joint Center.

The authors offer 12 recommendations:

End chronic homelessness.
Redirect public housing funding streams.
Protect and expand the Housing Choice Voucher program.
Establish a national housing trust fund.
Eliminate regulatory barriers to the production of workforce housing.
Enact a federal homeownership tax credit.
Create incentives for employers to provide housing assistance.
Preserve the affordability of privately owned multifamily rental housing.
Redefine the affordable housing mission for government-sponsored enterprises.
Prohibit predatory lending.
Institute university-based programs to train the nation's housing professionals.
Enforce the nation's fair housing and fair lending laws.
To learn more about the book, visit www.jchs.harvard.edu. The book costs $20 for a single copy.

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John McManus

Standard Pacific Strides Into the Black in Q1

Builder Pulse

John McManus is an award-winning editorial director for the Residential Construction Group at Hanley Wood in Washington, D.C. In addition to the BUILDER digital, print, and in-person editorial and programming portfolio, the group includes strategic content direction for AFFORDABLE HOUSING FINANCE, APARTMENT FINANCE TODAY, CUSTOM HOME, EcoHome, MULTIFAMILY EXECUTIVE, and residential architect.

Standard Pacific released first-quarter earnings post market close last night that beat Wall Street analysts' posted predictions. After a near brush with death in 2008, and life-support from MatlinPatterson's real estate funds, Standard Pacific's strategic, operational, and tactical planning and execution are playing well in what continues to be an adverse market environment in most of its competitive arenas.