Housing

Bipartisan housing panel aims for comprehensive solution

by Vicki Needham - 10/26/11 7:40 PM ET

The group’s four leaders — Martinez, former HUD secretary Henry Cisneros along with former Sens. Kit Bond and George Mitchell — will hold their first meeting in December.

In the meantime, the panel will seek out other members to fill the 14 other seats, most likely stakeholders from a broad spectrum of the economy, to hep shape the nation’s housing future.

The housing market has been in dire straits for more than five years and still hasn’t gained a solid foothold toward recovery.

Cisneros said the housing market’s continued woes aren’t any indication of inaction but merely that problems faced were much larger and more complex than initially thought.

“Past attempts to help the market didn’t do the trick because they were either not enough or not the right thing,” he told The Hill following a press conference.

Policy moves were at odds with each other, as well. Saving the banks from failure in 2008 made it nearly impossible to focus on the mortgage crisis, he said.

Although the group suggested that they would not supply piecemeal solutions and, instead, one comprehensive report, Cisneros questioned the need for finding an understanding on whether or not the panel will address the “bridge” period.

“We have a vision of what housing ought to look like in the long run but we can’t wish it there, you have to figure what are the steps that get us there,” he told The Hill. “That means getting out of this crisis. So I think by definition this group is going to have to address some of those things.”

President Obama faces a backlash at the polls next year if he can’t provide a boost to the economy along with seeing improvement in the housing sector

The Obama administration announced Monday it is working with federal housing overseers to tweak a key home-refinancing program to help homeowners who owe more on their mortgages than their homes are worth.

The panel’s leaders collectively called the housing market’s downturn a “human crisis” and a “huge economic problem” that is weighing on the recovery.

“How do we get out of the ditch,” Mitchell said. “That’s what the commission is about.”

Members expressed the desire to produce a plan that is “practical, realistic and helpful,” meaning it is “capable of being adopted or accepted by Congress.”

The panel examine the key issues of the housing finance system, including the roles of the private market and government, and policies that support rental and homeownership housing options. The Housing Commission will also actively seek input and ideas from the public and thought leaders by hosting regional forums across the country, through a robust web presence, and by conducting focus groups over the next year.

The first public forum seeking input will be held in San Antonio, Texas in March 2012.