Housing And Urban Development

President Reagan intends to nominate Judith Y. Brachman to be an assistant secretary of housing and urban development, the White House announced Thursday. Brachman would succeed Antonio Monroig.

WASHINGTON - The Department of Housing and Urban Development is instituting a permanent salary cap of $155,000 for top officials at public housing authorities, following reports of oversized compensation packages that included roughly $600,000 for the top official at the Atlanta Housing Authority. Atlanta Housing Authority President and Chief Executive Renee Glover and top executives at housing authorities in Los Angeles, Philadelphia and Chelsea, Mass., received excessive salaries in 2010, according to data from a national compensation survey conducted by HUD. It said Glover received $644,241.

A National Football League selection committee narrowed the list of candidates to succeed Pete Rozelle as commissioner. Although no announcement was made, the three front-runners are believed to be General Manager Jim Finks of the New Orleans Saints, NFL attorney Paul Tagliabue, and Jack Kemp, a former pro quarterback who is Secretary of Housing and Urban Development in the Bush Administration.

WASHINGTON -- Federal cutbacks and changes to the Department of Education were on the table during a fundraiser for Mitt Romney on Sunday, during which the presumptive Republican presidential nominee provided a more candid preview of what his presidency might be like. Reporters from the Wall Street Journal and MSNBC , listening from a public sidewalk just outside of the Palm Beach, Fla., residence where the event took place, found Romney to be more specific and less guarded than he has been on the campaign trail.

Nearly 3,000 housing vouchers have been awarded by the Department of Housing and Urban Development to 41 public housing agencies selected to participate in a housing voucher demonstration. The budget authorized for the program is $52,850,000 over five years, and is an approach to housing assistance that offers quality housing at about half the cost of new construction, according to the department.

HUD Facing Large Loan Defaults: The Department of Housing and Urban Development faces some $650 million in loan defaults from nine mortgage companies whose practices now are under review, a spokesman said. Three of the nine companies have been suspended indefinitely from doing business with the department, three others have been placed on probation for six months and three more face examination of their projects, HUD documents show. TRI Capital Corp. of San Francisco was one of the three lenders under review.

An inspector general's report said a major rehabilitation program of the Department of Housing and Urban Development was plagued by poor management and had awarded contracts worth millions of dollars without following rules for competitive selection. HUD Secretary Jack Kemp said the report revealed "some fundamental flaws" in the moderate rehabilitation subsidy program, a $225-million-a-year program in which developers acquire and renovate subsidized housing projects. The report said that because of poor management HUD had agreed to pay $59 million in excess housing assistance over the life of 15-year contracts it audited.

A nonprofit agency that promotes fairness in the sale and rental of housing in the Long Beach area has been awarded a $25,000 grant by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. The $25,000 is the entire annual budget of the Long Beach Area Community Housing Resource Board, which provides educational materials and conferences for realtors in Long Beach and southeastern Los Angeles County.

It was the second consecutive monthly increase, the government said, following a 1.3% sales gain last December. New single-family homes were sold at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 620,000 units in January. In addition, the median price of a new home soared 7.9% in January to $84,500, the highest percentage increase in almost 20 years, according to the Commerce and Housing and Urban Development departments.

"High Default Rates Prompt HUD Inquiry" [Sept. 25] serves to highlight the incompetence of management at the Department of Housing and Urban Development. There is no mystery about the reason for the high default rates of HUD loans. It is simply the fact that so many HUD homeowners have so very little invested in their properties, having moved in with insignificant, often zero, down payments. Simply requiring a minimum down payment of 10% would greatly reduce the HUD housing mortgage default rate.

Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's top appointee at the city's housing authority board resigned Friday, just days after she was identified as a subject of an inquiry by Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. Steve Cooley and a review by the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development. In a one-page letter to Villaraigosa, Beatriz Stotzer said she planned to resign as board president and made no mention of the ongoing inquiries. Instead, she said she had laid the foundation for a "bright future" at the housing agency.

The struggling city of Montebello was hit with another significant setback Wednesday as federal housing officials suspended funding to the city and demanded that it repay a total of $5 million in grants. The news added more financial pressure to a city already facing possible insolvency later this year as well as investigations by state and local agencies into allegations of misspent money and falsified records. In a memo to City Council members Wednesday afternoon, departing city administrator Peter Cosentini said a meeting with Department of Housing and Urban Development officials had reduced him to tears.

Another member of Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's senior staff is heading to Washington. On Friday, President Obama announced that he has nominated Mercedes Marquez, general manager of the city's Housing Department, to become assistant secretary for community planning and development at the Department of Housing and Urban Development. If she is confirmed by the U.S. Senate, the post would represent a reunion of sorts for Marquez.

Re "Family Faces Loss of Home Over Signature," Sept. 16: With taxes, the citizens of California subsidize the city's Housing Authority and are probably much more critical of these federal Housing and Urban Development programs than the organization's leaders. In the instance of a struggling young family being deposed of their financial assistance from HUD because of a forgotten signature, I would certainly think that Californians would be much more tolerant of a common omission. Reading the history of this family's efforts to not just survive but aspire in a world of apathy is endearing.

"High Default Rates Prompt HUD Inquiry" [Sept. 25] serves to highlight the incompetence of management at the Department of Housing and Urban Development. There is no mystery about the reason for the high default rates of HUD loans. It is simply the fact that so many HUD homeowners have so very little invested in their properties, having moved in with insignificant, often zero, down payments. Simply requiring a minimum down payment of 10% would greatly reduce the HUD housing mortgage default rate.

Kaufman & Broad's well-financed venture with Henry Cisneros will further exacerbate the housing shortage for the less-than-$10-an-hour wage earner in Southern California ["Cisneros Forms Company to Build Homes," Aug. 8]. There is no public benefit to cheer about. Cities will fall all over themselves to attract the Cisneros gentrification group as a way to eliminate probably the only truly affordable housing for families earning less than $10. We are all for eliminating these apartments after new replacement housing is built for the existing residents.

HUD Secretary Jack Kemp said today that fighting drugs in public housing ranks in importance with repair and modernization of units, as hundreds of residents gathered outside the White House to protest the lack of federal money for construction and rehabilitation. Kemp also said that, if given flexibility in allocating the Department of Housing and Urban Development's public housing budget and additional money specifically earmarked for anti-drug efforts, he could make "a significant attack" on the problem.

The Department of Housing and Urban Development will reopen a probe into an alleged scheme to rig the awarding of federally subsidized housing in Island Park, N.Y., HUD Secretary Jack Kemp announced. At the center of the controversy is HUD Region II administrator Geraldine McGann, whose son, Daniel McGann, was among those chosen to purchase a $44,500 house in the program. A cousin of Republican Sen. Alfonse M. D'Amato, a longtime resident of Island Park, also benefited from the program by buying a home for $40,000, according to a HUD audit.

A woman who faced eviction after paying more than 28 years of a 30-year, HUD-backed mortgage will get back her house in South-Central Los Angeles under a tentative settlement with two mortgage companies, her lawyer said Friday. The deal was reached after the woman, Lee Mary Hamilton, was flooded with offers of help from people who read of her plight in The Times. The case provoked action by Los Angeles city officials and by U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.

Dozens of Montebello third-graders met one of their heroes Tuesday as Henry Cisneros--former Clinton administration secretary of Housing and Urban Development--shared inspiring words with students who recently honored him with a personalized poem. Rosie Becerra Davies' class at Washington Elementary interviewed Cisneros about his job as president of Univision Communications, parent company of the nation's largest Spanish-language television network.