Bruce Katz Emphasizes Opportunities to Shape the New Generation of Federal Housing Policy

On Monday, June 29, Bruce Katz, vice president and director of the Metropolitan Policy Program at the Brookings Institute, delivered a keynote speech at the Federal Policy Luncheon at "Solutions for Working Families: 2009 Learning Conference on State and Local Housing Policy."

His remarks, which focused on a new generation of housing policy, discussed five central elements of an emerging national policy, including:

• The restoration of sanity, transparency, and fundamentals to mortgage finance and the process of home buying and homeownership;
• A return to balance in housing policy, with attention and leadership and resources dedicated to making rental housing affordable in safe, quality communities;
• The use of housing policy to advance communities of choice—where families can live close to decent schools, quality retail and decent amenities;
• The positioning of housing as a vehicle for energy efficiency at the building scale and sustainable, transit friendly growth at the metropolitan scale; and
• The renewal and transformation of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) itself—to both lead and support the national response.

In addition to highlighting the initiatives of HUD, Katz also emphasized the rare opportunity policymakers and practitioners now have to "orchestrate a generational shift in federal housing policy—both in traditional housing legislation and action."

To learn more about Katz' remarks, please read his prepared Keynote Speech.