Statement from Terri Ludwig, president & CEO of Enterprise Community Partners, on Dr. Ben Carson as nominee for secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development
WASHINGTON, D.C. – (RealEstateRama) — Enterprise will work with Dr. Ben Carson, President-elect Trump’s nominee for secretary of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, to ensure every person in the U.S. has a decent, affordable home in a thriving community connected to good schools, jobs, transit and health care. We are hopeful that his background of growing up poor in Detroit and becoming a leading surgeon will make him a powerful advocate for building the critical link between healthy communities and healthy children and families.
During his acceptance speech, President-Elect Trump said that a top priority for his administration will be to invest in America’s infrastructure and inner cities as part of a “project of national growth and renewal.”
Investments in quality, affordable housing must be a part of that agenda. Today more than one in four families who rent their homes – 11.4 million households in total – are “housing insecure,” spending at least half of their monthly income on housing. This unprecedented affordable housing crisis not only damages the health and economic prospects of millions of people in America, it’s also a drag on our country’s economic growth.
We urge the nominee, the new administration and Congress to take bold steps to address this worsening crisis and root that action, as Dr. Carson has put it, in “the compassion and the unity that empowers us.” Enterprise’s testimony to the RNC platform drafting committee offers a guide to federal policies that can be enacted immediately.
For three decades, Enterprise has built partnerships with the federal government under both Republican and Democratic administrations that have created solutions to our nation’s most pressing economic and social problems. Enterprise was part of the effort to create the Low Income Housing Tax Credit, America’s primary tool for creating and preserving affordable housing in the U.S., which was signed into law by President Reagan in 1986.
Enterprise will work tirelessly with HUD and our partners around the country to make progress on our shared mission of building diverse, dynamic communities, increasing racial, economic and social equity, and supporting the most vulnerable members of our communities.
Together with President-elect Trump, HUD Secretary Nominee Carson, incoming members of the next administration and the 115th Congress, we will strive to build an infrastructure of opportunity for low-income families.
– See more at: http://www.enterprisecommunity.org/news-and-events/news-releases/statement-terri-ludwig-nomination-dr-ben-carson#sthash.EfiQFomD.dpuf
