News

“There is broad agreement across the housing industry that the only real solution to this crisis is federal rental assistance. For property owners, it is a crushing unfunded mandate that will bankrupt many small businesses. For 43 million renter households, it creates a complicated and opaque maze that those most in need cannot possibly navigate. Congress and the White House must reconvene negotiations on a comprehensive solution immediately. Treasury secretary Steven Mnuchin has said, ‘Our first choice is to have bipartisan legislation that allocates specific rental assistance to people hardest hit.’ If there’s that much agreement, then there is no reason to delay any further.” – David M. Dworkin

“[The order] kicks the crisis down the road to January, when the weather will be colder and more people will be in even greater crisis.” -David M. Dworkin

“We could still have millions of evictions in January, in the middle of winter, and all we will have accomplished is evicting people in colder weather.” – David M. Dworkin

“The National Housing Conference, a nonpartisan nonprofit organization that calls for equitable housing in the U.S., is calling on lawmakers to extend relief to an estimated 30-40 million renters who are largely left out of a federally mandated form of relief but are at risk of eviction.”

David Dworkin, CEO of the National Housing Conference, a nonprofit, nonpartisan coalition of national housing leaders from both the public and private sector, says that some municipalities found the AFFH reporting requirements “onerous,” but that instead of tossing out the entire rule, HUD could have made revisions to certain reporting practices.

“I think it’s reasonable to argue how much reporting needs to be done,” Dworkin says. “But Trump has thrown the whole thing in the garbage can.”

“Anti-discrimination legislation, like ending redlining—which Biden proposes—in housing is crucial. “What Biden is proposing would help millions of Americans. There’s a disturbing element of ‘I’ve got mine, too bad for you.’ Some people say, ‘I put 20% down on the house, why can’t you?’” – David Dworkin

A second Trump term “will be an attempt to peel back the entire regulatory framework of enacted fair housing legislation, including the Fair Housing Act itself, and all the related regulations and the Community Reinvestment Act, and potentially, moving into areas like the Equal Credit Opportunity Act.” – David Dworkin

“There should be no higher priority than avoiding millions of evictions throughout the country. Without emergency rental assistance funding, we will face a catastrophic crisis.” -David M. Dworkin

“This is an attempt to make a law-and-order case to an audience that no longer exists. The people who live in the suburbs today are largely going to be embarrassed by these arguments and do not want to be associated with racist housing policies, even when they have reservations about affordable housing.” – David M. Dworkin

“Affordable housing doesn’t hurt home values. It actually strengthens communities and it is a critical component of building our way out of this recession. Housing has led the recovery of every recession since 1960 except for the last one, and that’s an obvious exception to the rule. But if we’re going to get out of this recession, it’s not going to be by having people go back to work at Neiman Marcus or J.Crew. Those companies have filed for bankruptcy, and we’re going to need to put people to work and I think housing construction is a really critical component of how we’re going to do that. ” – David M. Dworkin