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I have heard that the government has started selling lots of foreclosed homes to government approved real estate management firms or property liquidators. 1. Where is more information on this process? 2. Who is getting to bid on lots of homes, how do we find out who is awarded the properties? 3. What are the long term ramifications of this?

Actual title is : It’s baaack! The plan to kill talk radio. Group advising White House wants to restore controversial policy An organization that helped to craft President Obama’s environmental policies has recommended the reinstatement of the Fairness Doctrine, purportedly as a method of silencing critics of the theory of global warming. The Presidential Climate Action Project, or PCAP, last year released an extensive list of recommendations for the White House in a 75-page paper entitled, “Building the Obama Administration’s Climate Legacy.” Primary among the PCAP’s recommendations is that the Department of Energy should join the U.S. Department of Housing...

Last year, we told you about a proposed rule from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) regarding equal access to HUD housing programs regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity. Among the key requirements of the rule is a prohibition on inquires regarding sexual orientation or gender identity, as well as a prohibition on using sexual orientation or gender identity as grounds for decision-making in Federal Housing Administration (FHA) programs. Additionally, the rule brings the definition of “eligible families� into the 21st century by including those who are lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT). This afternoon, HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan...

What might cause the New York Times editorial board to find, in New York’s suburban Westchester County, an example of “a struggle for racial integration [that] is neither bygone nor exclusively Southern�? Why might “county leaders [be] stonewalling federal authorities over a longstanding housing desegregation case�?More or less, a Republican executive in a deep blue district. Over the past two years, county executive Rob Astorino has garnered widespread attention and praise for defending his county against racially tinged federal overreach in a mundane affordable-housing case, while also reducing the onerous costs of county government.In recent decades, Westchester’s wealth has...

-Hakim Ouansafi, chairman of the Muslim Association of Hawaii and a longtime executive in the hotel industry here, has been selected as the newest head of the state’s public housing agency. The board of the Hawaii Public Housing Agency is scheduled to vote on Ouansafi’s appointment tomorrow. His selection must also be approved by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. If approved, Ouansafi, 47, would be the ninth executive to serve at the top of the troubled agency in 14 years.

Full Title: Government Pamphlet Taught Banks How To Finance A $70,000 Home With A $500 Downpayment A government publication offering banks guidance on "community development" urged banks to offering low-income borrowers loans with many of the features now deplored as irresponsible and lax lending. The two-volume set uncovered by Clusterstock was titled EFFECTIVE STRATEGIES FOR COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT FINANCE/COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT RESOURCE GUIDE.

What you’re about to read is a real blood-boiler. Mortgage meltdowns and housing bubbles don’t cause themselves, they are caused. The root cause of our current housing mess was massive government intervention that went horribly wrong. In previous columns, we covered the early precipitating causes. Now, let’s stroll back to the latter half of the 1990s decade. The Clinton Administration had already hot-wired CRA and HUD to extend home ownership to all citizens, regardless of their creditworthiness. Congress and the Federal Reserve then jumped on the bandwagon. This activism caused mortgage standards to be relaxed across the industry. Clinton juiced-up...

Today's adjustment to the government's HARP program to get anything with a pulse as close to the discount window as possible was not the only proposal to revive the moribund US housing market. According to a new proposal by HUD, beginning this month and continuing for a year, anyone with a just $100 will be allowed to buy a HUD-owned REO home. In essence: the new buyer is merely taking over the mortgage payments in a repeat of what happened in 1970s New York along the Central Park West corridor. Granted for now it is stricly limited to only... 28...

As we all expected, the occupy Wall Street movement is fake and contrived like most things the socialist democrats do. The crowds are a fraction of what Tea Party organizations draw and they obviously do not represent 99-percent. The “occupy insert city here” movement is a bitter faction of radical communists who want to overthrow the very fabric of American society, plain and simple.

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo on Monday supported President Barack Obama's proposal to tax millionaires and corporations at a higher rate to pay for a jobs program. Cuomo initially declined to comment during a Monday press conference on Obama's proposal until he received "specifics." Hours later, Cuomo urged Congress to support the Democratic president's proposal. Cuomo killed a state proposal by his fellow Democrats in the Assembly earlier this year that would have increased the income tax on wealthier New Yorkers. He said it would hurt the economy and chase wealthier New Yorkers and employers to neighboring states.

CHICAGO (MarketWatch) -- U.S. Housing and Urban Development (HUD) will award Chicago $30.5 million to redevelop the Woodlawn neighborhood on the city's south side. The grant is part of HUD's Choice Neighborhoods Initiative, a plan to bring affordable housing, safer streets and better schools to distressed neighborhoods. Under the program, Boston, New Orleans, San Francisco, Seattle and Chicago have received a total of $122 million

Four teenagers were wounded Tuesday night in a drive-by shooting in the city's WestWoodlawn neighborhood on the South Side, officials said. The scene of the shooting is just blocks fromWoodlawn Center South, where Mayor Rahm Emanuel is scheduled to meet later today with U.S. Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Shaun Donovan, Sen. Dick Durbin and Rep. Bobby Rush to discuss a program to revitalize the blighted neighborhood.

Time after time, we have found that this administration cares not one whit about following basic laws. What does it mean for Congress to pass and the president to sign a law banning a corrupt organization and its affiliates from receiving federal funds? Apparently the Obama administration could care less. As you will recall, the Obama Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) awarded a grant of $79,819 to ACORN spin-off Affordable Housing Centers of America (AHCOA), despite the fact that Barack Obama signed the ACORN funding ban in October 2009. (And despite the fact that the organization was nailed...

OPINION AUGUST 18, 2011 Raising Hell in Subsidized Housing Section 8 rental subsidies have long helped ruin neighborhoods. Obama administration policies are making things worse. BY JAMES BOVARD Section 8 rental subsidies have long been one of the most controversial federal social programs. The Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) under the Obama administration is making a troubled program worse. In the 1990s, the feds were embarrassed by skyrocketing crime rates in public housing—up to 10 times the national average, according to HUD studies and many newspaper reports. The government’s response was to hand out vouchers to residents of...

Just when you thought you might sleep better at night, with only worries about feeding your family, keeping your job and home in a terrible economy, the debt ceiling just raised to $2.8 trillion, the United Nation’s “Sustainability” Agenda 21 marches on with the help of a myriad of private and governmental organizations nationwide dedicated to the “fundamental change” of America as we know it. The HUD Secretary just announced on July 28, 2011 the availability of $95 million to support “sustainable local initiatives” through the fiscal year 2011 Regional Planning and Community Challenge Planning Grant Programs. It seems like...

State attorneys general are negotiating to give major banks wide immunity over irregularities in handling foreclosures, even as evidence has emerged that banks are continuing to file questionable documents. A coalition of all 50 states' attorneys general has been negotiating settlements with five of the biggest U.S. banks that would include payment of up to $25 billion in penalties and commitments to follow new rules. In exchange, the banks would get immunity from civil lawsuits by the states, as well as similar guarantees by the Justice Department and Department of Housing and Urban Development, which have participated in the talks.

As a tactic for generating federal subsidies, "bait and switch" works. Case in point: The now-defunct Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, or ACORN. The blogosphere has been alive during the past week over the release this past March by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) of a grant of nearly $80,000 to Affordable Housing Centers of America, which until 18 months ago operated as ACORN Housing Corporation. Though the grant was a carryover from fiscal year 2010, the revelation notwithstanding raises the possibility that the Obama administration is ignoring a 2009 congressional ban on...

President Obama’s favorite La Raza group has teamed up with a federal agency to promote one of the administration’s many government cash giveaways with Spanish ads encouraging Latinos—possibly illegal immigrants—to apply for free U.S. taxpayer dollars.The new campaign warns Hispanics that time is running out to get up to “$50,000 in help” from Uncle Sam to pay their mortgage, past due charges, taxes, insurance and even legal fees associated with their home. The money is being disbursed by the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) as part of a billion-dollar Emergency Homeowner Loan Program (EHLP).In 2008 the agency revealed...

Why is Obama apparently defying federal law by funding ACORN? Judicial Watch discovered the administration is flouting the will of Congress by giving federal money to ACORN.Obama's HUD  gave a $79,819 grant to the largest branch of the ACORN tree, ACORN Housing Corp. . AHC filed papers last year legally changing its name to Affordable Housing Centers of America. Worse yet, the grant funds a political agitation and indoctrination program. Here's HUD's euphemistic description of the program: Education and Outreach Initiative grants (EOI) - HUD awarded $6.8 million to organizations that educate the public and housing providers about their rights and obligations under federal, state,...

Santa Fe New Mexico So Pissed In Brief Alexa Schirtzinger April 27, 2011 On April 13, SFR reported on complaints of mismanagement filed by a resident of Casa Cerrillos, a substance-free housing program run by the St. Elizabeth Shelter Corp. At 3 pm the day the story published, Julia, the resident who filed the complaint, was issued a warning by Casa Cerrillos Program Manager Shea Goodluck-Barnes for failing to follow the proper grievance procedure by sending her complaints directly to the US Department of Housing and Urban Development. At 3:30 pm, Julia was given a urinalysis test. At 4:50 pm,...

(CNSNews.com) - April is National Fair Housing Month, and to mark the occasion, the Obama administration is addressing discrimination in housing based on national origin. The emphasis is on immigrants, legal or illegal. The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) announced on Monday that it plans to educate the public -- through community talks and a media campaign -- about discrimination against "persons of foreign descent." “Through this education campaign, HUD will work with communities to prevent housing discrimination and promote immigrant integration into the broader society," said John Trasvina, HUD Assistant Secretary for Fair Housing and Equal...

The Fair Housing Act prohibits housing discriminate based on race, color, national origin, religion, sex, disability, or families with children. While sexual orientation and gender identity are not prohibited bases of discrimination under the federal Fair Housing Act, housing discrimination against someone who is LGBT may, in certain circumstances, violate the Act's existing provisions, including its prohibition against gender discrimination. "While 20 states and over 200 local governments have led the way to make LGBT-related housing discrimination illegal, HUD is firmly committed to supporting the right of LGBT individuals and families to lead productive and dignified lives, free from housing...

Green Township is being singled out because federal investigators believe the housing authority blocked new public housing there for at least the past two years. More public housing for the poor is likely headed to Green Township and some other communities as part of a deal to resolve a discrimination complaint against Cincinnati's housing authority.

(CNSNews.com) - Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Secretary Shaun Donovan said that no other President “better understands” the need for public housing than President Obama, adding that the administration will “fight” House Republicans over their proposed cut to public housing funding. “Barack Obama didn’t come to Washington to let your homes be sold off to the highest bidder or let them decay so badly that they won’t be there for future generations and neither did I,” he told the National Low Income Housing Coalition conference in Washington on Monday. “Let’s not forget, let’s not forget that President Obama got his...

WASHINGTON (March 25, 2011)——The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) has urged the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) not to adopt a proposed regulation that would add sexual orientation and gender identity to the list of protected categories for which discrimination in HUD programs is prohibited. In comments filed today with HUD, Anthony Picarello, USCCB general counsel, and Michael Moses, USCCB associate general counsel, noted that, when it comes to orientation and gender identity, “a protected classification for purposes of federal housing programs has no support in any Act of Congress and appears at odds with at...

Senator Rand Paul, R-Ky., unveiled today his five-year path to a balanced budget, leaving several federal agencies behind. Among the items on the cutting room floor are the Departments of Education, Energy, Commerce and Housing and Urban Development. “There’s a lot of things in here that everybody could agree to, Republicans and Democrats, but nobody’s leading on the president’s side and on our side we felt we needed to put this forward to get the debate started, at the very least,” the freshman Senator explained at a Capitol Hill press conference this afternoon. The proposal also calls for the repeal...

The report delivered Friday by Geithner and Housing and Urban Development Secretary Shaun Donovan presents three approaches for a future housing finance system. It also calls the government to shrink “and ultimately wind down” Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the bailed-out government-sponsored enterprise companies that helped fuel the housing bubble before being felled by investments in subprime mortgages. “This is a plan for fundamental reform -- to wind down the GSEs, strengthen consumer protection and preserve access to affordable housing for people who need it,” Geithner said in a statement accompanying the report. The report also pledges ongoing U.S. government...

The Obama administration proposed raising fees for borrowers and requiring large down payments for home loans as part of a long-term effort to reduce the government's outsized footprint in the housing market, but warned that these moves could increase mortgage rates and potentially reduce the availability of the 30-year fixed rate mortgage, a mainstay of American housing for decades. In a long-awaited white paper, the administration said that it intends to wind down Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which together with the Federal Housing Administration provide more than 90 percent of housing finance, but said the process could take five...

  The radical nationwide nonprofit network, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now - better known as ACORN - has wound down operations in an effort at damage control. A new government report suggests more spin will be needed. On September 21 the Office of the Inspector General, U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), released an evaluation (see pdf) of certain expenditures of ACORN Housing Corporation (AHC), one of the largest affiliates under the ACORN umbrella. The review concluded that the Chicago-based nonprofit had misspent a sizable portion of the roughly $3.25 million it received from...

Raytheon will install a large, colour display in Lockheed Martin F-16 cockpits, a key enabler for future sensor upgrades. The US Air National Guard and Air Force Reserve selected Raytheon's 6 x 8in (15.2 x 20.3cm) centre pedestal display for a requirement to upgrade hundreds of F-16 Block 30s. Including spares, Raytheon believes the two services could order as many as 720 displays over the next six years. The potential for foreign sales is comparable or even greater, says Tom Lansing, the company's business development senior manager for customised engineering and depot support.

<p>WASHINGTON (AP) - There were accusations of an executive slush fund, financial shenanigans and dictatorial management. But it was the $900,000 in secret sexual harassment payments that got the head of the nation's fourth-largest housing authority fired and had the mayor asking how the housing board missed it all.</p>

Andrew Cuomo points to his time as Housing and Urban Development secretary as a prime example of how he's made government more efficient and effective. But federal auditors say Mr. Cuomo oversaw a "poorly planned" overhaul of personnel that bulked up HUD's public outreach but undermined the agency's enforcement efforts. During the gubernatorial debate on Monday, Mr. Cuomo touted his four-year record at HUD, saying he "shrunk government" and promising to do the same in Albany if elected governor. "The question in this race is who can actually do it. Who can get it done," he said. While the number...

President Bill Clinton's Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Andrew Cuomo answered questions in 1998 at a press conference regarding HUD policy that would ensure that banks could not discriminate against low-income minorities when considering individuals from this group for housing loans. In this video (h/t Eyeblast) he says: "To take a greater risk on these mortgages...yes. To give families mortgages they who they would not have given otherwise?...yes." Mr. Cuomo is then asked if this people in this group could have gotten the loans at all in the first place. In a telling response, he answers: "They would not...

WASHINGTON (AllPolitics, April 3) -- Accubanc Mortgage Corporation of Dallas,Texas, has agreed to a pay $2.148 billion in a settlement with the Department of Housing and Urban Development for discrimination in loan practices. HUD Secretary Andrew Cuomo announced the largest settlement ever in an unfair housing dispute. Accubanc will make the money available through mortgage loans and program development to increase home ownership over the next three years. The loans will allow 15,700 low- and moderate-income families and minority families to obtain home mortgages that were previously denied. Accubanc is expected to take a loss on the loans, although the...

A new program run by the Department of Housing and Urban Development allows delinquent borrowers who are unemployed or suffering from a severe medical condition to receive assistance with mortgage payments for up to 24 months. The Emergency Homeowners Loan Program offers up to $50,000 to eligible borrowers at a 0% interest rate. HUD officials called it a true bridge loan because all deferred payments are forgivable provided the borrower lives in a home and remains current on payments for five consecutive years. But the program isn't for everyone. Brian Sullivan, public affairs representative for HUD, said borrowers must have...

At least 120 municipalities spent a combined $700 million in housing funds from 2000 to 2008 without constructing a single new unit, a Times analysis of state data shows. Nor did most of them add to the housing stock by rehabilitating existing units. ___ TITLE BURIES LEAD ___ Second of two parts — Cities across California have skirted or ignored laws requiring them to build affordable homes and in the process mismanaged hundreds of millions in taxpayer dollars, a Times investigation has found. At least 120 municipalities — nearly one in three with active redevelopment agencies — spent a combined...

Market research showed a need for more low-income senior housing in Rochester, but the numbers of people applying for 53 new rent-subsidized independent living apartment units brought that need home. As of several weeks ago, more than 80 people had applied to live at Kenosha Drive Apartments, a new low-income senior housing facility for those age 62 and older in northwest Rochester, which is set to become the flagship property for Accessible Space, a national nonprofit affordable housing provider based in St. Paul. That's the most applications the non-profit has received for a new facility, said Devin C. Vander Schaaf,...

(...) "Andrew gave him a bye," Paladino told The Buffalo News in an interview published Tuesday. "And then he comes and he pays Andrew off with a $1.2 million salary he gave him and $800,000 in political contributions." Paladino told the News the Farkas association is criminal in nature. (...)

(CNSNews.com) – Two Republican members of Congress are calling on the Justice Department to state in writing whether it will initiate a criminal investigation into an organization, formerly known as the ACORN Housing Corporation, after an investigation found the group engaged in poor accounting measures involving federal grant money.The organization, formerly affiliated with the Association of Community Organizers for Reform Now, or ACORN, is currently called the Affordable Housing Centers of America (AHCOA).The AHCOA used grant money designated for counseling to potential homebuyers from the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) to pay the salaries of terminated employees...

Andrew Cuomo, the youngest Housing and Urban Development secretary in history, made a series of decisions between 1997 and 2001 that gave birth to the country's current crisis. He took actions that—in combination with many other factors—helped plunge Fannie and Freddie into the subprime markets without putting in place the means to monitor their increasingly risky investments. He turned the Federal Housing Administration mortgage program into a sweetheart lender with sky-high loan ceilings and no money down, and he legalized what a federal judge has branded "kickbacks" to brokers that have fueled the sale of overpriced and unsupportable loans. Three...

It's 20+ years late and I realize my mistake. Back in the 1980's, Jack Kemp boosted "Enterprise Zones." They were supposed to revitalize America's cities. Recently a friend has asked me for assistance in starting a small retail business. Of course the biggest obstacle is getting the startup capital. I was looking around and came across the HUD site. I then started looking at possible sites. To make a long story short, the commercial properties inside the zone I could find seemed like high risk sites to say the least. One main drag in town had some commercial properties (no...

Call it a hair-of-the-dog solution to a seemingly intractable problem. The Department of Housing and Urban Development have begun issuing emergency $50,000 loans at zero interest to unemployed homeowners in an attempt to stall foreclosures, using $1 billion of Porkulus funds for the effort and $2 billion from the same source for indirect aid through state governments. Ironically, while foreclosure seizures are rising, the actual trend is more optimistic: The Obama administration is providing $3 billion to unemployed homeowners facing foreclosure in the nation’s toughest job markets.The Treasury Department says it will send $2 billion to 17 states that have...

....Another $1 billion will go to a new program being run by the Department of Housing and Urban Development. It will provide homeowners with emergency zero-interest rate loans of up to $50,000 for up to two years. The administration was required to launch the programs by the financial regulatory bill signed by President Barack Obama last month.

HRA Helps Clients Purchase Cars with Wheels for Work Program HRA, the State Office of Temporary and Disability Assistance (OTDA) and the Education and Assistance Corporation (EAC) recently began a program to help lowincome New Yorkers living in areas with limited public transportation buy cars to get to and from work and pick their children up from school. The program, Wheels for Work, serves working families and individuals in Queens and Staten Island, where residents are most likely to need a car. To be eligible, you must be working at least 35 hours a week for the past six months,...

Criticism of the Obama Administration's mortgage bailout, the Home Affordable Modification Program, is reaching a fever pitch, and I know this because, among other things, the Administration itself appears to be mounting a defense. Recently, reporters who cover housing were called to the Treasury Department for a "background briefing" by Administration officials, who tried to focus attention on the many, varied Administration efforts to stabilize housing; the message was...it's not all about our modification program. Yesterday I received several emailed announcements from both HUD and the Treasury. One alerted us to a "Conference on the Future of Housing Finance," set...

The Metropolitan Transit Authority of Harris County, Texas (METRO) is in line to receive $150 million for the North and Southeast Corridor light-rail lines as part of the Senate Appropriations Committee’s fiscal-year 2011 Transportation, Housing and Urban Development Appropriations bill approved last week. The House version of the FY2011 appropriations bill set aside $152 million for the projects. The full House will vote on the bill later this week. The $150 million proposed by the Senate committee would be in addition to $150 million secured in FY2010, bringing the total amount of federal funds allocated for the two light-rail projects...

Democrats claim their sweeping financial-sector reforms will guard against the kind of problems that triggered the recent economic meltdown. But if they really wanted to do that, they would've focused on how so many US officials were simply . . . bought. Fat chance. Nonetheless, Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), ranking member of the House Committee on Oversight and Governmental Reform, is demanding just such a review -- and, for the sake of the nation, he should get one. Last week, Issa wrote to Alfred Pollard, general counsel to the Federal Housing Finance Agency, which oversees Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac,...

South Korean electronics maker LIG Nex1 has signed an $8 million contract with Rockwell Collins for head-up data display units for U.S. Air Force F-15 fighters. The displays will also be delivered to the air forces of three other country's that fly the jet, LIG Nex1 said in a news release. The HUD is an instrument that's placed above the cockpit instrument glare shield for viewing data. It allows a pilot to view the information through a transparent screen as the flyer continues to look forward. HUDs are specifically designed to improve pilot situational awareness. The company, in a news...

(CNSNews.com) - The U.S. Justice Department gave a group called the New York Agency for Community Affairs a grant of $135,130 in fiscal year 2005 to “provide youth leadership training to students at select New York City schools, form ‘ACORN Youth Union’ chapters, and coordinate student campaigns to address issues such as school funding, neighborhood safety, and school governance,” according to a Government Accountability Office report released this week. The GAO report says that in fiscal years 2005 through 2009 the federal government gave ACORN and what the GAO calls “potentially related organizations” more than $40 million in federal funds.  According...

At the beginning of the decade, a plague of chaos erupted in working class neighborhoods across America. In once relatively peaceful areas, epidemics of murder, rape and robbery broke out. Police faced a grim situation. The mayhem once contained to isolated sections of the city had jumped the breaks. A firestorm had erupted destroying neighborhoods and ripping apart families. Horrifying though it may be, crime is mundane in one respect: It tends to occur in predictable patterns. These patterns signify that the thin veneer of civilization is holding. Without the thin veneer of civilization, man would tear himself to shreds....