Housing Secretary Shaun Donovan was one of Mayor Bloomberg's whiz kids before he joined the Obama administration. Meeting with reporters Thursday morning to tout glimmers of good economic news, he recalled the scene in the famous Bloomberg bullpen in New York when the first stimulus bill failed in Congress. As everyone watched the vote tally go down on a big screen, the mayor declared, "The world is ending." With that as his yardstick, Donovan put the best face he could on an improving economy. He talked about the lessons learned from the housing crisis, among them the need to "rebalance" housing policy to make renting more attractive and affordable, and with less focus placed on homeownership as a pure good.
At 40, Donovan is the youngest member of the cabinet, and clearly one of the brightest and most earnest about the mission he has been handed. He answered every question in detail and with great seriousness. He said the communities hurt the most by the mortgage crisis tend to be at the lower end of the income scale, with the least access to jobs, public transportation, retail stores—and with no opportunity to walk or to bike. He called this isolation one of the least discussed aspects of housing policy, and explained how he is working with other cabinet officials and Congress to put policies in place that can build sustainable communities.
The only time he seemed flustered was when a reporter noted that his remarks were focused mainly on lower-income people, and that he hadn't mentioned the middle class. Where do these Americans struggling to pay their mortgages go when Bank of America doesn't even answer their phone call? Those policies are still being put in place, he said.
Reporters pounced when he suggested the sacrosanct home-mortgage deduction might be better targeted, and that is one of the options on the table for the deficit commission to consider when it reports its recommendations in December, after the midterm elections. He noted that candidate Obama had touched on the issue during the campaign, but when reporters asked if this huge subsidy to homeowners could be cut back to reduce the deficit, Donovan sensed he might be about to commit news, which he didn't want to do. Pressed to be more explicit, he stressed the issue is not under active consideration, there is no policy group looking at it, and in his best Washingtonese attempted to shut down the discussion saying, "I don't want to comment on an issue we're not talking about."
Uncommon Knowledge
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
