Rebuilding America’s economy

Over the last two and a half years, twice as many people have saved their homes than lost them to foreclosure. More than 5 million families have received restructured mortgages since April 2009 —more than double the number of foreclosure completions over that period.

{mosads}That’s why, when President Obama sent the American Jobs Act to Congress to last month, it included Project Rebuild. If enacted by Congress, Project Rebuild will put construction workers to work rehabilitating homes, businesses and communities, leveraging private capital and other public-private collaborations.

Existing neighborhood stabilization efforts enacted by Congress since the housing crisis began are on track to create nearly 90,000 jobs and address nearly 95,000 vacant and abandoned properties throughout the country.

These efforts have not only helped families move in to once-foreclosed homes in hard-hit places, they’ve also created jobs in hard-hit industries, helping builders keep construction workers on the job, giving real estate agents the opportunity to show and sell homes once again.

Project Rebuild would create close to 200,000 jobs and build on the bipartisan success of the neighborhood stabilization program with a few important innovations. It would allow for-profit organizations to apply directly for funds, ensuring private-sector institutions who have participated in neighborhood stabilization are full partners in this transformation. It would provide also the spark entrepreneurs need to start small businesses and create jobs by allowing for the rehabilitation of vacant commercial properties.

Across the country, we’ve seen how it’s not just abandoned homes that can drag down an entire neighborhood, but vacant commercial properties as well. That’s why Project Rebuild would allow commercial redevelopment essential to neighborhood revitalization to be funded directly — allowing for more mixed-use development in hard-hit neighborhoods, from retail to grocery stores.

Cities like Santa Ana, Calif., are already seeing the results of targeted investments to address residential foreclosures by leveraging the financial strength of the private sector and creating stronger and smarter public-private partnerships. They have worked with nonprofit developers for its multifamily rental rehab program, and with a private developer for its single-family homeownership program. Add to this revitalizing abandoned commercial property in the same targeted area and you create real momentum.

Project Rebuild is fundamentally an investment not just in hard-hit places but also in the families who have watched their home values plummet on average by $5,000 to $10,000 simply because they live on a block with a foreclosure sign. The Project Rebuild investment will not only help stabilize individual home prices on the block, it also sends neighbors a hopeful message — we believe in you, we are investing in you, stay here and raise your family. 

Its inclusion in the American Jobs Act reflects the president’s belief that rebuilding neighborhoods is essential to rebuilding our economy.

Like all the proposals in the American Jobs Act — repairing and modernizing 35,000 schools, or ensuring that no veteran who has fought for this country ever has to fight for a job when they come home ever again, Project Rebuild isn’t a Democratic idea or Republican idea. It’s an American idea — one that will help our economy in a moment of national crisis.

As Obama said, the next election is 14 months away — and the American people don’t have the luxury of waiting 14 months for us to take action.

With the American Jobs Act they won’t have to. With bipartisan, innovative solutions like Project Rebuild, it’s something that Congress can do right now to create more jobs, stabilize home prices and put more money in people’s pockets. 

Márquez is assistant secretary at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.