Department+of+Housing+and+Urban+Development

The Department of Housing and Urban Development, or HUD, is a cabinet member of the executive branch of the federal government. There are many operating units in the department which include Community Planning and Development, Housing, Public and Indian Housing, Policy Development and Research, Government National Mortgage, and Partnership for Advancing Technology in Housing . The secretary of the Urban Development department is Shaun Donovan . Shaun has an assistant secretary which is Brian Montgomery . The last of the three main leaders of this department is Kenneth Donahue. Under their positions are the chief of staff, deputy sheriff, and the chief executive officer.  The mission statement of the department of housing and urban development is: "... to increase homeownership, support community development and increase access to affordable housing free from discrimination . (http://www.hud.gov/library/bookshelf12/hudmission.cfm)" There are other areas o focus that they consider like budgets. They need to control their budget in order to fulfill all of their duties. The 2009 fiscal budget came out to be $38.5 billion . Some of the most important areas they focus on are: public housing, section 8 voucher assistance, and homeless veterans assistance. The history of this department dates back to 1937 with the U.S. Housing Act of 1937. In 1965, the Department of Housing and Urban Development Act was established as a member of the cabinet in the executive branch. In 1966, Robert C. Wood becomes the department's first secretary. And in 2009, Shaun Donovan became the 15th secretary of the department and is currently in office.

__Current Articles__ Article 1- The Making Home Affordable Program was put into effect by the current president, Barrack Obama, on March 4, 2009. This program will immediately go into effect until the year 2012. The program will give $75 billion to 9 million homeowners that are struggling to pay of their mortgage. The Banker's Academy is updating their software to include the new program to give them an undertsanding of it and to prepare lenders who want to join it. <span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">"Banker's Academy Includes Making Home Affordable Program in Focus on Compliance For Credit Unions." [home-affordable-program-in-focus-on-compliance-for-credit-unions.html]. April 21, 2009. PRLog.

Article 2- The government previously handled the loan modifications if someone seriously cannot make their payments for a long period. However, that hurt the homeowner because they are helping them when they are very deep in their financial hole and may not recover. The recent Making Home Affordable Program handles it differently. If the homeowner missses one payment or even if they are just getting by a mortgage payment, they are qualified for the program. The downside of "skipping a payment" will hurt your credit score resulting in problems with refinancing your mortgage, getting a car loan, and getting credit cards. "Should I Skip a Mortgage Payment?" []. April 30, 2009. NBC Action News.

Article 3- The program has two parts to make sure that the homeowners will not foreclose their house. The first part of the program helps people who have been falling behind on their payments and who are just making them get loan modifications. However, the homeowner's loans must be on or before the beginning of this year. The second part of the program helps people to refinance who have been making their payments on time, but are "underwater" which means that they owe more than the house's value. There are three major disqualifications dealing with this part of the program which are: if you are more than 5% underwater, you are unemployed, and your loan is more than $729,750. "Making Home Affordable Program Takes Effect." []. March 4, 2009. 6ABC Action News.

__Recommendation__ President Obama, I recommend that the program should stay in effect because it is a great idea to help many people who are in debt because of their mortgage and the sudden downfall of the economy. It will give those hopeless people strength to carry on and make their payments and to get out of debt. I also recommend to focus a little more on the most susceptible to foreclosure, etc. like Louisiana, where Hurricane Katrina still has a great burden over the people. I believe it is a good plan and the only thing you should change is the budget. You should increase the budget to help out more people and to focus away our attention on other things-the war, for example.