Transcripts For CSPAN3 Acting 20240703

The Bipartisan Policy Center in washington, d. C. And runs about 45 minute. Minutes. Good morning, and welcome to the housing policy center. This will be the ninth conversation in our leaders Speaker Series which is intended to spotlight individuals who understand the foundational importance of housing and have made significant contributions to improving Housing Affordability in our country. Today we are very excited to welcome a distinguished guest, acting secretary of the u. S. Department of housing and urban development. As most of you know, hud is the federal agency tasked with helping meet American Housing needs and strengthening our nations communities, housing and urban development. It also plays a vital role in enforcing federal housing laws. Those of us in the housing field, our guest today needs no introduction. Simply put, she has devoted most if not all of her professional life to helping her fellow citizens achieve affordable, stable housing. Before assuming her position last month, acting secretary todman served at the Agency Deputy secretary, the number two official in the department where she focused on both operational and policy priorities. These priorities concluded efforts to increase Affordable Housing supply and improve the agencys responsiveness to natural disasters. From 2017 to 2021, she with the ceo of the National Association of housing and redevelopment officials, which represents more than 26,000 housing and Community Development providers. Prior to her work, she served at the executive director district of Columbia Housing Authority where she worked to house veterans experiencing homelessness, increase homeownership opportunities for low to moderate income families, and implement multiple development efforts. Acting secretary todmans career in Public Service began in the office of congressman ron lugo who represented the u. S. Virgin islands, where she was born and raised. So acting secretary todman, i just want to thank you so much for joining us, we are honored to have you. Adrianne my pleasure. Dennis a little housekeeping before starting the conversation, let me remind our virtual audience that if you have any questions for our guest, you can post them to our twitter x account using the bpclive. You are also welcome to submit your questions to the youtube chat. We will save some time at the end of our conversation to take questions from both our in person and virtual audiences. With that, lets start having a conversation. Very interesting background. You were raised in the u. S. Virgin islands, and you worked for, as i mentioned in the the introduction, the territorys first representative to the u. S. Congress. How has your background influenced your commitment to Public Service, specifically to housing policy . Adrianne this is good news for all you 20somethings out there, this is not a path i thought i would be on. I grew up in the u. S. Virgin islands. I think the impact that it has on me now being there was i was in a strong, loving family and when i look back now at my upbringing, i realize all of the foundational things i have come up that every child should have, so they are able to thrive. I grew up in a town of 30,000 people. It is lovely, but it is very small. I know small love small living when i see it. There is a fair amount of rural areas as well. Dennis thank you for that. Now you are the acting secretary. Did you ever think you would be in the cabinet of the president growing up . Adrienne im sure i had an idea of something similar. Dennis you transition from the deputy secretary to the acting secretary. How has that transition been . How is that job different from being the deputy secretary to being the acting secretary . Adrianne this is my fifth week in the job, and every morning i wake up and i say to myself what is what are the things that only i can do . As the acting secretary, to create a space between things that i dont need to do everyday anymore . And so the job as an acting secretary is to be very outwardlooking. Making sure that we are meeting the rest of the country where they are. That we are focused on the things the president and the Vice President want us to be focused on, that we are working with mayors and nonprofits in a way that is useful to them and we are also just getting things across the line. Lets talking, more doing. So i am trying to make sure i hold up that part of the job. Dennis is the deputy more of an internallyfocused responsibly, making sure the wheels in the machine are running . Adrianne that is correct, is considered the coo. I was really focused internally to make sure that our outside posture was strong. Even as i look behind the curtain to make sure things are still going well, i am very outward focused. Dennis i paytv ipt i pity the acting deputy secretary. Adrianne he has done a great job. Dennis you mentioned the president. In the recent state of the union he devoted nine lines to housing which, for those of us in the policy community, was significant. Nine lines in the state of the union is significant. Where does housing rank among the administrations overall priorities, and could you take a moment to describe some of the initiatives the administration is pursuing to improve Housing Affordability on the supply side which we focus on a lot but also on the demand side . Adrianne absolutely. And i have to say even though i was hearing that the president was going to to talk about housing in the state of the union, i was just giddy when it actually happened. It was great, and it really just demonstrated how important housing is from the very top of this ministration. But it didnt begin with the state of the union. A housing supply action plan which was all hands on deck across the thracian part of usa treasury, making sure that we were pushing the envelope, even in light of the fact that we didnt have some of the funding and authorities that we wanted to have. So it has been very effective and productive. Weve seen things like the civil finance bank sharing initiative, weve moved the deadline, allowing for more hsas to be involved in the program, but weve been working with our partners at treasury to make sure they are repurposed seeing the state and local fiscal economy funds as Capital Financing at the local level. We have been a very busy administration, and housing ranks one of the top issues we are focused on. Dennis housing is such a locally driven issue, right . It sometimes can be difficult to figure out what are the federal levels, what is the federal path to help promote more Affordable Housing supply when so much is driven at the local level . Adrianne you are absolutely right, it is a very localized experience. We have the program the treasury administers and we have funds to help with operating subsidy and projectbased vouchers so while it is very localized we still play a significant role in helping housing agencies and developers and nonprofits build Affordable Housing so housing will be built. We have seen up to 3 Million Units come online in the next year or so but it is critical that we are building for the individuals who are low or moderate income or who are dealing with real affordability issues right now. Dennis do you see the Housing Affordability problem as a mismatch between the great demand for housing and available supply . Adrianne absolutely. It is not lost on anybody who pays attention to how far behind we are as a country and the number of units we need upwards of 3 million. It began just after the Great Recession where it was hard to get credit, just hard to build. And there was a number of particularly singlefamily homes on the market to absorb some of the demand. But here we are several years later, and we do see that we have fallen behind. So one of the reasons we have been very intentional with our supply action plan, even in the face of not having all the resources that we need, making sure we are doing everything we can to help the governors. One of the things that im particularly proud of is our pro housing program. We talk a lot about resources, but we also need to be sure that we are creating an environment where housing can be built at all. Dennis that Program Provides grants . Adrianne it is a new program. It was developed by the congress in a bipartisan way. 85 million that will go to states, localities, others to really incentivize and motivate folks to remove the barriers to building more housing. Whatever the barriers may be at the local level. So we are getting ready to release those awards this spring. Dennis at the center we are very focused on an issue we think is not given as much attention as it deserves, and that is the preservation of the existing stock of Affordable Housing, because housing, if you look at the numbers, affordability restrictions are going to expire in the coming years for a large number of units. Steps do you think the government, private sector, Nonprofit Community can take to ensure that Affordable Housing remains affordable . Adrianne absolutely. We need more but we have to take care of what we have. I will begin with the most vulnerable portfolio, and that is our Public Housing sites. About 70 billion of Capital Needs that we need for that portfolio. I think the rental Assistance Demonstration Program has done a great job repositioning many sites but it keeps making headlines and demonstrating that there is a need. We continue to make sure that we are working with local agencies, but we also have a new program for our privately owned asset housing portfolio, a budgetbased program that will help some of those owners address some of their longterm Capital Needs as well. In addition to that, we always partner with our local houses on the ground on ways to use existing funds not only to build, but to preserve. Certainly using our program, using all the programs that we have. Dennis we try to keep this an acronymfriendly zone, and we also want to welcome our cspan audience who is out there listening to us today. One issue that has really captured my attention and our attention at the center is the issue of rising insurance costs and their impact on Housing Affordability. Insurance costs are going up and up. Some insurers are now not ensuring homes in certain areas of the country. I know you recently testified about this issue in congress. Could you tell us what hud is doing . Adrianne i have yet to meet a multifamily Building Owner who does not talk about the pressures that insurance puts into their annual operating cost. I have yet to meet a singlefamily owner, current or firsttime, who are having difficulties getting insurance that is affordable to them. Certainly insurance is not something that fits inside of huds authority, but we recognize there are things we can do to be helpful. Under a year ago i created an internal working group to at least scan the department. To see what we can do. We look at the multifamily portfolio, the singlefamily, the Public Housing portfolio. We looked at what is the research that is out there that we need to Pay Attention to, are there things that hud is doing now by way of building more resilient housing that will help reduce insurance costs in months and years to come . And we have some wins just last week. We announced the new wind and storm damage Insurance Initiative from our office of housing that we think will help in terms of ways that hud is bringing its authorities to bear. Dennis so this is a focus. Adrianne absolutely. Dennis it sounds like you have been working this issue for about a year. Adrianne we wanted to make sure we were thoughtful about what we can do and to really look at things that are required and also things that we can do to meet the moment. Many housing owners may not know when and if they can send Additional Information that increases the amount of funds that hud can provide them. But there is a larger issue, just like the insurance cost to begin with, and we are going to have a special session on that in the next month or so. Dennis great. Another important topic, many of us were startled or surprised not pleasantly, when the members when the account numbers were released earlier this year that showed more than 653,000 people were experiencing homelessness, an increase of 12 from 2022. It is a complex problem, but in your view, what are the root causes of homelessness and what should the federal response be . Adrianne it was disheartening to see that increase across all the subpopulations for unhouse brothers and sisters across the country, but i would keep in mind that the count occurred in january of 2023. Since that time, the administration has done a lot to sort of help localities meet their moments. Weve provided a historic new program centered around unsheltered homelessness to help mayors deal with some of the encampments that they are experiencing. Weve also provided new funds to rural committees, we help with some of our unhoused youth, and we also deploy the largest amount of funds for those nonprofits that are at the front lines doing the heavy lifting every single day to make sure they have the resources that they need. During this years point in time i was in indianapolis, one of the few cities in the country that saw homelessness go down. I participated. The overall homeless numbers go down, just to understand their experience is like. Things they think are working. I traveled the country and have been able to share some of that with several mayors. Dennis speaking of indianapolis, what are the local communities that are doing good things, getting the job done . Adrianne i think it is a high level of coordination. Homelessness seems really simple when you think about someone at the corner that needs help. One of the things that works effectively is a high level of coordination between those frontline people who are dealing with unhoused individuals with the folks who have housing, folks who are administering vouchers. When we experience high levels of coordination and political intentionality to make sure we are dealing with this. I will say this. We always need resources to make sure we are meeting the intentionality and it is one of the reasons why the president in each of his budgets has been very intentional and asking for more federal assistance to help folks who are not just homeless, but are at risk of homelessness, including Older Americans who we see are beginning to experience some risk as well. Dennis senior homelessness is the fastest rising cohort. Adrianne we are trying to make sure we take care of the entire population. Dennis thank you. We had a webinar with the board chair of ppc of the issue of homelessness and we had the mayor of los angeles, former mayor of houston. The point was made in that webinar that this issue of leadership and this issue of coordination, particularly with particularly it was mayor parkers lesson for us getting , everybody working together, a lot of people trying to do good things, but they dont know what everybody else is doing. Adrianne you have to measure it so that you know when you are having an impact. And you have to have one north star. There are many, many good leaders who are working hard and also saw their numbers go up. One of the things we found is the social safety net that enveloped the country during the pandemic, whether it was the Child Tax Credit or checks people got from treasury, we saw that folks were able to sustain themselves. So we know what works. We were able to stem a homelessness crisis during the pandemic because all of those supports were around americans across the country. When those began to sort of peel away and end is when we began to see this increase. So while it was disheartening, i do not think it was terribly surprising that as we saw that begin to happen, we saw what was happening. That is why we took those critical steps last year to try to make sure we were putting more resources out there. Dennis great. Now that weve heard about some of the administrations housing priorities, where do you think the greatest opportunities for bipartisanship around housing and meeting the Housing Needs of so many people who are struggling . Where can we get something done . Adrianne housing is one of those issues that is bipartisan by its very nature. Everybody, no matter where you are from, understands that Everybody Needs a home. Im always very grateful for some of the great ideas that come out of bpc to advance that. Theres some great ideas on the hill right now that are bipartisan in nature. We know there is more we can do to strengthen and expand the tax credit programs which incentivizes private investments into Affordable Housing. It has been around for decades and is wildly successful one of , the biggest generators of Affordable Housing in the country. We also know that theres other good ideas because we know that firsttime homeowners are finding it difficult to find that first home. They might have a down payment, they might be ready to go, but they literally cant find a home. So there are other ideas to help kickstart having some starter homes built. Dennis the new homes investment act . Adrianne as an example. And i think that those are the kinds of things that we look to congress to embrace, because we think it will make a difference. Dennis here, here. We strongly support the Affordable Housing credit act credit improvement act which has 218 sponsors both republican and , democrat. Equally divided and the Neighborhood Homes investment act. So getting both of those bills over the finish line would make a big difference. Adrianne it is bipartisan in nature and i Hope Congress will act. Dennis well lets talk about the demand side. We talked about the supply side, which seems to be where most of the bipartisanship is. But the Housing Choice Voucher Program is an incredibly important program, helps more than 2. 3 million low income households afford the rent and the private rental market. But unfortunately, some estimates of about 40 of people after waiting months if not years to get a voucher are simply unable to utilize the voucher. They cant find a willing landlord. So what can be done . Some landlords complain that it is administratively burdensome, the inspection process takes too much time, and they have mortgages, they need to pay their own mortgage. So what can be done to at least administratively increase landlord participation in the housing choice voucher . Adrianne to your point, theres one in 4, 1 in five eligible households that receive a voucher from the federal government, so we know we need more. From a demand perspective. As it relates to things that we can do, we have been pushing out the door, and i have been helping to push, making sure that some of the relief that the department received to administer the Program Years ago through a law, that we are getting those across the finish line so we can help local agencies administer the program. One example of that in something that has already been done is being able to use some of the federal funding very flexibly so we can get people into units. But we know that the program is very complex. We can do a lot better. Those are our we are having now. Like what more can we do . I think we are quietly beginning to hit a wall so we have been talking to the landlord community, talking with landlords about what makes a difference in running the program. We know what it is and so we are incorporating some ideas but there is a legislative agenda we need to have. Dennis a lot of the legislation was mandated. So hud cannot just adrianne one thing i hear from landlords is they recognize the need but also see sometimes the different ways in which the program is administered. Sometimes in the same region. So we are also working with the housing agencies to lift up the best practices so we can try to help people quickly and encourage more landlords to be involved in the program. Dennis that is wonderful. I know your team are working hard. Adrianne policy housing and research. Dennis we believe factory built housing presents an opportunity to increase supply of homes quickly and efficiently without jeopardizing quality. What do you see it as the most significant barriers to greater adoption of factory built housing in the marketplace, and what is hud doing, i know it regulates manufactured housing. Adrianne we are owners of the hud code. For manufactured housing. We are doing a lot of work in terms of the policy perspective and also from a building perspective on housing. Each year for the last three years we have hosted this phenomenal event, the innovations in housing showcase on the national ball. National mall. If you ever want to see a tiny home in real life, i think it is june the sixth or eighth. Lots of homes will be built. In addition to making sure people understand manufactured housing is not what it was 20 years ago, we are also seeing, you asked about barriers, it is some still think modular and manufactured housing is a 1960s , 1970s trailer park. Their vision of innovation is not that. So we are working with those who want to introduce modular manufactured housing. There is a new program that is about 200 million. We are finding ways to lift up this concept of innovations in housing and connected those who are living in manufactured Housing Communities and make sure they are ok. We know we have built housing the same way for decades now and we think it is time for us to be able to think not just about credit and how many new units we need to build to keep up but also how to do it in new ways. We have new financing tools and 80 use adus. We are doing everything we can to lift up the innovations. Dennis thats great. Another issue is that of natural disasters. Unfortunately we are seeing too many of them and the president s budget supports authorizing the community bought Development Grant Disaster Recovery program rather than continuing the practice of Congress Just appropriating emergency funds to hud when disaster strikes. How would this authorization affects the program and practice and why do you think it is needed . Adrianne hugs Disaster Recovery Program Helps communities when they are no longer in the headlines. We sadly have seen the frequency of storms and severity of storms , whether they are floods or tornadoes or hurricanes. This is a very personal issue being the daughter of the caribbean, my own family has been impacted and displaced because of hurricanes. It is an issue to not have this Critical Community intervention not be authorized. What it means is that hud right now is unable to have the kind of responsiveness that mayors and leaders need us to have. Democrat or republicans need us to have when people are at their most vulnerable. Disaster recovery is Community Development on steroids. Midfield kentucky, a very tiny town. A tornado came through. It was effectively wiped out. Florida after hurricane ian, fort myers, i saw some of the disasters. I was at maui after the wildfires. Horrific moments for people. So this program is more than a program, it is almost a feeling communities need to be able to stand back up and get back to where they need to be and something that helps families get there as well. It certainly needs to be authorized. We say that in multiple proposals and we are waiting. Dennis great. I am going to open up the floor to questions. If anyone would like to ask a question, please raise your hands. Adrianne let me warn you, you can ask, and i may or may not answer. [laughter] i was surprised to learn the code2 and um the continuum of care is relatively new. Im curious to know what your relationship was with the coc developing as deputy and also if you can explain with the Award Competition is and how and what the criteria is and how it is distributed. Adrianne so i will show my age just a little bit. I did not play a hand in the creation of continuing care but i was in the building as a much, much younger staffer when the concept was created by the leadership that you just mentioned, and what we tried to do is make sure that the continuance of care, which is the nonprofits who are at the front of helping our unhoused brothers and sisters and neighbors across the country have the resources and the Technical Assistance that they use. Deploying the highest amount of funds ever to them, 3. 1 billion early this year was something we are very proud of. We know that they are working extraordinarily hard, and we always want to make sure that they know that hud is here to help. It is a great concept. It shows off each partnership with the nonprofit and it is work that we continue to support. Dennis question over there. Madam secretary, congratulations from the industry. I know there is a lot of confidence and comfort in your appointment, so thank you so much. You mentioned indianapolis and the success with reducing homelessness. Are there any communities that come to mind with regards to meeting their goals on producing new units . Adrianne thats a great question. I think there are a number of localities who are doing that. We know that indianapolis took some really bold steps years ago in terms of what they did to remove barriers, and i think that it is true that theyve seen some growth in the number of units that are produced. We know that there are many other cities like charlotte, like austin who whenever you are there, you see units being built. Units that are affordable. I was in nashville not long ago and saw a number of investments that that city was making, using the state and local physical recovery funds but also using some hud tools as well to make sure that they were building. So theres a number of cities across the country who are working very diligently. I think now the question is about pace, not just about need. Dennis im going to just interject. I know there are a couple more audience questions, but this is from the virtual audience on the issue of homelessness. Can you speak to the Lessons Learned from the joint hud Supportive Housing programs and how they can shape further action on this issue . Adrianne i think we are talking about the program which is unique. Imagine one department trying to solve a complex issue, imagine having two departments working together to solve a complex issue. That is what hud and Veterans Affairs is doing with this program. Which, if there is any Lesson Learned through that, it is that we have the capacity to reduce homelessness and in some parts of the country, eliminate homelessness for veterans when properly resourced. With the use of that program, we saw a reduction of veterans homelessness by 50 . 50 . So we know that it can be done. I think that it just shows if we work to expand the Voucher Program writ large, the kind of impact he could have instead of serving one in 4, 1 in five. We are serving substantially more americans. It is a great model of what we can do, and it also payers services for the needs that some pairs services for the needs that some veterans have who were coming off the streets. It is a great program, we work very closely with the secretary and his team to make sure that it is dennis being done effectively. Thank you. Secretary, congratulations on your new role. I think it is great for the department and the countrys Housing Needs. Building off from the last question, taking a little a different direction, it seems like a lot of the programs at hud and the work that it does currently requires close Collaboration Partnership with other agencies or other stakeholders on the ground. In the Housing Finance system, there is a similar need, particularly kind of having an economic recovery act that was enacted during the financial crisis, which created the federal Housing Finance agency across the street. Hud continues to play a really Important Role in Mortgage Finance policy. How do we ensure that there is close coordination and collaboration between those two agencies to ensure that we are kind of responsibly and sustainably expanding access to mortgage credit rather than just kind of shifting share back and forth between hud or fhsa, the va, usta . There are just so many agencies, so i would love to hear your thoughts on how to ensure there is collaboration and coordination in that area. Adrianne thank you. Ive got to say that perhaps, and somebody could push back on this, perhaps i dont think there has been as much collaboration as there is now between hud and fhsa. Sandra thompson has been someone that both the former secretary and now i lean to in terms of ways that we can strengthen the Housing Finance system. We work so collaboratively that she was sitting next to be at my hearing last week before senate banking, so that is collaboration right there. Dennis were you finishing each others sentences . Adrianne not quite but we were darn close. [laughter] we certainly were collaborative with each other in terms of not just access to credit, but ways in which hud and others can even from a supply perspective, and certainly from a firsttime homeowner perspective. There is high levels of collaboration between the director and the department, and that will continue. Dennis yes, in the back . My name is kayla and i am with the ymca. I just wanted to thank you so much for your willingness to work with our Nonprofit Community during the Community Funding process. And im just wondering, are there ways that in the Nonprofit Community we can help our applicants build either stronger applications or work smarter within the regulatory process . Adrianne absolutely. Number one, im still learning things about hud. It is shocking, i know. [laughter] dennis thats what makes the job enjoyable. Adrianne thats what makes the job enjoyable. But the breadth and depth of hud, i know my colleague pam would agree with me, we have probably intersections in everything that any community needs. And so we talked about homelessness. Im sure that many folks may not know that hud is in the Health Care Facility business. We also do mortgage insurance, to build out health care, whether there are nursing home facilities or hospitals in communities that need it most. This is a long way of saying that number one, i think the number one thing for any emerging nonprofit out there is to Pay Attention to all the Different Things that hud does in all the various ways that we do it. I talk about urban development. We have a whole body of work. In rural america. Im not going to use acronyms. We have a program that helps rural nonprofits figure out how to build in their communities, how to deal with the homeless issues in their communities. We also have a dedicated Technical Assistance program for folks who just want to get to know hud a little bit better. We do a lot of work with making sure Small Businesses that want to work with hud understand how to get access to huds contracts. Part of it, and this sounds kind of corny, going to our website is a onestop shop. Hud. Gov. It will not just teach about the work that we carry out, but have a nonprofits can be engaged. Dennis you also have regional offices. Adrianne we have regional offices across the country and we are over 8000 employees strong. Most of those folks are across the country, and so we also have that resource. Thank you for bringing that up. Dennis ive got to ask you a question from the virtual audience because it is a topic on the minds of a lot of people these days. Another innovation that hasnt come up yet is artificial intelligence. How has hud been thinking about the role of ai and housing in housing . Dennis adrianne i think it is fair to say that the white house has taken a leadership role making sure that there is harmony across the departments and how they are coming at this work. We all have expectations of having ai governance, that we look at in a very serious way. Not only is a threat, but as an opportunity to really create efficiencies in our work. We have been talking to our leaders about those kind of cases that really expand on our work, but also in a way that is consistent with the value we place on our employees as well, making sure it is employeecentered in making their work more efficient. So there is more to come. A lot to say, more to come. Dennis stay tuned. We are hitting our time limit, let me just ask one final question to close this out. Reflecting on your career so far, do you have any words of wisdom for young people who might be considering a career in Public Service . Adrianne so number one, go where your journey takes you. I always say, be prepared for good luck. You asked the question earlier did i think i would be here . , no, there is nothing about 18yearold adrianne saying you know what my path is, Public Housing. That did not come up in my conversations with myself. But heres the thing. I feel like younger folks these days may have a crisis in confidence. And i think that if there is any words of wisdom i can impart, be confident on the things that you are good at. Particularly women, particularly people of color. They sometimes feel they dont have agency and voice. I would also say that folks should think about what brings them joy. Particularly if you are younger, if your work isnt bringing you joy, if you are very lucky, there is a match, but as you evolve and become older, find something that brings you joy because it feels less and less like work, it just feels like living. Surround yourself with people who have faith in you as well. Have confidence, have faith, find joy. The rest will happen. Dennis these are wonderful words of advice. I feel like i should be writing them down. That is really great, great advice. Thank you so much. Again, i want to thank you very, very much for honoring us with your presence today and allowing us to host you here at the bpc and for sharing your insights and information. It has been a great conversation and i want to thank everyone here for joining us and to our virtual and cspan audiences, thank you as well. That is it for the day. Enjoy the rest of the afternoon. Adrianne take care, everyone. [applause]