Us Housing Policy at the Crossroads: Rebuilding the Housing Constituency

ABSTRACT:

Federal housing policy faces an uncertain future and a weak fragmented political constituency. The Republican controlled Congress may dramatically downsize the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. Some even want to eliminate the agency altogether. In response, the Clinton administration has promised to reinvent and streamline HUD. Neither approach, however, addresses the nation’s housing problems or the totality of federal housing programs in any comprehensive way. The authors analyze the factors contributing to HUD’s vulnerability, review the various proposals to reorganize the agency, and propose an alternative and more comprehensive policy that has the potential to expand the political constituency for federal housing policy.