Prior to
the notion that the federal government should assume control of every aspect of
the US economy, individuals and families were solely responsible for providing
a roof over their heads. The Great
Depression and drought in the 1930s prompted the government to “do
something”. In the 1930s, families lost
their farms in the dust bowl. The
drought destroyed their crops and they ran out of money to pay their mortgages
and operate their farms. Family farms
lived from harvest to harvest and still had to borrow money from the bank to
buy seed, livestock feed and farm equipment.
The banks took their farms when they couldn’t make payments on their
loans.
In the
cities, factories and businesses closed and families suffered the same
foreclosure fate being experienced by the farm families. Elected officials chose to take the
opportunity to bail out the lenders. Mortgage insurance protects the lenders
from losing income from mortgage loans and the insurance premiums are paid by
the home buyers. They later added “slum
clearance” to their list of HUD functions.
When jobs
producing military hardware were created in 1939 after Germany’s invasion of
Poland, factories began to open to supply our European allies, Great Britain
and France. The drought had ended and the banks could begin to sell the
properties they had seized.
In 1945,
when World War II was won, the US emerged as the only manufacturing power left
standing. The government could have stopped
there and left their footprint limited to continuing mortgage insurance and
slum clearance, but they didn’t. They
moved to expand their control over housing.
This was consistent with the movement toward socialism and the
government controlled economy.
It’s easy
to see how the US government would continue to expand its power with the
unconstitutional power to print money and subsidize corporations. Both government and the voters didn’t see how
increasing government control would erode individual rights and
responsibilities and pervert the free economy.
HUD history is as follows:
·
June 27, 1934 - The National Housing Act creates the Federal Housing Administration, which helps provide mortgage
insurance on loans made by FHA-approved lenders.[3]
·
September 1, 1937- Housing Act of 1937 creates the United States Housing Authority, which helps enact slum-clearance
projects and construction of low-rent housing
·
February 3, 1938: The National Housing Act Amendments of
1938 is signed into law.[4] The law creates the Federal National Mortgage Association (FNMA), which provides a secondary
market to the Federal Housing Administration[5]
·
July 27, 1947 – The Housing and Home Finance Agency is established through Reorganization Plan Number 3
·
July 15, 1949 – The Housing Act of 1949 is enacted to help eradicate slums and promote community
development and redevelopment programs
·
August 10, 1965 – The Housing and Urban Development Act of
1965 instituted
several major expansions in federal housing programs
·
September 1965 – HUD is created as a cabinet-level agency
by the Department of Housing and Urban Development Act
·
During 1968 – The Housing and Urban Development Act of
1968 establishes
the Government National Mortgage
Association (Ginnie Mae)
·
August 1969 – The Brooke Amendment establishes that low income families
only pay no more than 25 percent of their income for rent
·
August 1974 – Housing and Community Development Act
of 1974 allows
community development block grants and help for urban homesteading
·
October 1977 – The Housing and Community Act of 1977 sets up Urban Development Grants and
continues elderly and handicapped assistance
·
July 1987 – The Stewart B. McKinney Homeless Assistance Act gives help to communities to deal with
homelessness. It includes the creation of the United States Interagency Council on
Homelessness of which HUD
is a member.
·
February 1988 – The Housing and Community Development Act
provides for the sale of public housing to resident management corporations
·
October 1992 – The Housing and Community Development Act
of 1992 codifies
within its language the Federal Housing Enterprises Financial
Safety and Soundness Act of 1992 that creates the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise
Oversight, and mandates
HUD to set goals for lower income and underserved housing areas for the GSEs Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac
·
March 1996 – The Housing Opportunity Program Extension
Act give public housing authorities the tools to screen out and evict residents
who might endanger other existing residents due to substance abuse and criminal
behavior
·
October 1998 – Government laws are proposed which would
allow local housing authorities to open up more public housing to the middle
class
·
November 2007 – HUD initiates program providing
seller concessions to buyers of HUD homes, allowing them to use a down payment
of $100
·
May 2013 – HUD announces it will "close its
offices on May 24 and possibly six other days" as a result of the Sequester [6]
HUD’s mission
is to create strong, sustainable, inclusive communities and quality affordable
homes for all. HUD is working to strengthen the housing market to bolster the
economy and protect consumers; meet the need for quality affordable rental
homes; utilize housing as a platform for improving quality of life; build
inclusive and sustainable communities free from discrimination; and transform
the way HUD does business.[7]
HUD
continued to fail to help citizens and erode families and has a long list of
failures like “public housing”.
Now HUD
is attempting to take over zoning using grant bribes. Their goal is to move poor minorities (and
refugees) into expensive subdivisions nationwide. This will destroy property values and schools
and accomplish nothing more than that.
Norb
Leahy, Dunwoody GA Tea Party Leader
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