| Subject: Sec. of Housing & Urban Development Alphonso Jackson resigns |
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Date Posted: Tue, April 01, 2008 8:27:08
Housing leader steps down
By Seattle Times news services
Alphonso Jackson's resignation leaves the White House without a top housing official as it faces the mortgage crisis.
WASHINGTON — The resignation of embattled Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Secretary Alphonso Jackson leaves the Bush administration without a top housing official as it faces a vast mortgage crisis that has shaken the global economy.
Jackson departed after the White House concluded he had too many controversies swirling around him to be an effective Cabinet member, several HUD officials said privately.
Bush accepted Jackson's resignation Monday "with regret," describing his longtime friend and former neighbor from Dallas as a "strong leader and a good man."
Jackson has been the target of accusations of favoritism involving HUD contractors for two years, and is under investigation by the FBI and Justice Department for allegations that he steered business to friends.
Democratic lawmakers who pressed for Jackson's ouster welcomed the announcement while challenging the administration to speed the nation's escape from the housing crisis.
"Today's news means little to the millions of homeowners struggling to stay above water," said Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash. "What they need is for their pleas for help from this administration to no longer fall on deaf ears."
Jackson, 62, announced his decision in a brief statement and did not take questions. His resignation becomes effective April 18.
In his letter to Bush, Jackson said there "are times when one must attend more diligently to personal and family matters. Now is such a time for me."
HUD is a $35 billion agency that funds public housing and rental assistance for low-income families. It also runs the Federal Housing Administration (FHA), which helps struggling and first-time buyers to buy and refinance their homes with a low down payment.
With only 10 months remaining before the president leaves office, Jackson's resignation forces Bush into a quick search for a replacement who could win confirmation in the Democratic-controlled Senate. Congressional officials and others familiar with HUD suggested that potential candidates might include Brian Montgomery, the FHA commissioner, and Roy Bernardi, Jackson's deputy.
Jackson, who previously headed housing authorities in Dallas, St. Louis and the District of Columbia, was a key defender of the administration's relatively cautious approach to the housing crisis, including a program called Hope Now, a government and industry initiative to ease terms on subprime mortgages.
"We have helped families keep their homes," Jackson said Monday. "We have reduced chronic homelessness. And we have preserved affordable housing and increased minority homeownership."
But he seemed more likely to be remembered for his intemperate tongue and the contracts scandal.
In 2004, less than two months after his confirmation as housing secretary, Jackson told a House panel he believed poverty "is a state of mind, not a condition," provoking harsh criticism. Two years later, he said in a speech that he had canceled a contract for a company after its president told him that he did not like Bush. Jackson later said he had made the story up.
In March, Jackson took a pounding from senators who demanded explanations for allegations that he had steered hundreds of thousands of dollars to friends for work at the Virgin Islands housing authority and reconstruction in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina.
The Justice Department and the housing department's inspector-general are investigating those accusations. A government official briefed on the inquiry said investigators were particularly focused on Jackson's role in New Orleans, where he is accused of helping a friend get construction work after Katrina.
Lawmakers also raised concerns about accusations that Jackson had threatened to withdraw federal aid from the Philadelphia Housing Authority after its president refused to turn over a $2 million property to a politically connected developer. Pennsylvania's senators, Arlen Specter, a Republican, and Bob Casey, a Democrat, said "it is difficult to conclude that HUD's actions are anything but retaliatory."
And in a letter to Bush in March, Murray and Democratic Sen. Christopher Dodd of Connecticut, asserted that Jackson should resign, saying that the allegations of wrongdoing had undermined his leadership.
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