allow borrowers that have made their higher interest rate payments on their mortgages to refinance without all the red tape. Borrowers that have paid their current mortgages are not allowed to refinance due to all the guideline changes. If borrowers can pay what they are paying now, why shouldnt they be alllowed to refinance into a lower rate and payment without the new loan guidelines getting in the way??? I know of people that have high interest rates that have been making the payments on time and would like to refinance into lower rates, but cannot now due to lender guideline changes and all the red tape involved in refinancing. Shouldnt these people, regardless of their current credit and income situations be allowed to refinance into a lower payment based explicitly on the fact that they have been making higher payments. Something to consider......

It is a fact that people living in poverty often suffer from poor nutrition. Community gardening is a good way to provide low/mod families with an extra source of food, increase their intake of healthy foods and teach children that food doesn't come from a bag or container. If we allowed communities to pay for community gardens with CDBG funds, or gave bonus points to Homeless projects which had a community gardening component, we could help to meet these two goals, as well as having an impact on the environment by locals not purchasing as much food that was trucked in from miles away. The impact on families would be large, with a comparitively small investment of funds. Additionally, many of the university agriculture extensions will work with people to help them get started with gardens and also show them how to can and preserve their food, so that they can enjoy nutritious foods during the winter months. Where necessary, programs could be tailored to include an educational piece about nutrition and cooking, for people who may not know how to cook some of the items grown in the community garden.

Dr. Deming, TQM's founder, taught many concepts,

"There is no substitute for knowledge." This statement emphasizes the need to know more, about everything in the system. It is considered as a contrast to the old statement, "There is no substitute for hard work" by Thomas Alva Edison (1847–1931). Instead, a small amount of knowledge could save many hours of hard work.
"The most important things cannot be measured." The issues that are most important, long term, cannot be measured in advance. However, they might be among the factors that an organization is measuring, just not understood as most important at the time.
"The most important things are unknown or unknowable." The factors that have the greatest impact, long term, can be quite surprising. Analogous to an earthquake that disrupts service, other "earth-shattering" events that most affect an organization will be unknown or unknowable, in advance. Other examples of important things would be: a drastic change in technology, or new investment capital.

We need a detailed Web Resource List, to support this. HUD does not have anywhere near enough of staff formally assigned to do this, which is a major bottleneck. The resources list is a significant part of the fuel for getting to your goals, and it should be something that grows regularly, almost as if it were a living being of information. HUD needs to foster Interest Groups, including staff and clients, in areas from microenterprise, to community gardening/Permaculture, to doing youth programs on shoestring financing, to family reunification, to AA and addiction groups, to healthy food choices, to creating urban groceries and food cooperatives, to clothing cooperatives, to cooperative childcare, to a computer center interest group perhaps under the Neighborhood Network concept but additional to what is done now, to every other piece of the set of programs necessary to bring people into self-sufficiency. I will not use the word committee, because of the connotations that little gets done, let's use the word interest group, where people cooperate in sharing ideas and resources. If you are serious about this Strat Plan, and I think you are, you will need interest groups, to develop what needs to be developed. You don't have the time to do this yourself. If you are serious about what you say, this is absolutely essential, and furthermore at this time, you don't know what even half of the interest areas will have to be to accomplish the goals you state. This concept is not new to HUD; I have been part of such groups in the past, however management mostly didn't listen to anything that came out of such groups.

If you don't do this, you'll only have the current top down numbers addiction mentality, which will not produce the results you say you want.

In Systems Theory, which is based in part on indigenous cultural ideas, all disease is blockage. Remove the blockage, and flow heals the disease. It worked for emotional and physical healing, among indigenous people, at 1/1000 the cost of what we spend for such healing. At a societal level, we need to remove the blocks for entrepreneurs. Going entrepreneurial means taking risks. There are business incubators in a few parts of the country, which help people get businesses started, let them develop the skills needed at a pace they can handle, and in time they outgrow the need for such help, though they can always go back for advice. Microlending is another example of such an approach. Every goal HUD states involves money, and the ability to make it. Self-sufficiency? This is another word for money sufficiency, based on job skills applied. Home ownership? This is another word for good credit rating, based on paying bills timely, based on job skills applied to get regular income. Improvements in community? They cost money. Tax money comes from people who make money. Donated money comes from people who make money. Donated time comes from people who have income to pay their expenses, with some extra time. Every goal HUD has boils down to income. This is also where most of the blockage is. Why is HUD not recognizing that? Yes, alcoholism is a problem. What does that come from? Crummy nutrition, which leads to depression, which leads to self-medication. Crummy nutrition comes from buying junk food. I remember someone talking about doing cooking classes in a project; the answer given was that everyone at at fast food restaurants. Supersize me already. Government critics like to talk about self-sufficiency. Great. Let them get involved in self-sufficiency training, if they know so much about it. Openly invite them. The Ford Motor Company started out as a dream in the mind of an entrepreneur, who saw Chicago slaughterhouses, and dreamed of taking metal car parts and doing it in reverse.

Many localities in my state demand a separate bedroom for male and female children. This means a family of more than 1 could need a 3 BR apartment. Few single parents can afford a 3BR rent, and most of our family projects don't have 3BR's or larger apartments. These rules discriminate against immigrants- who are used to smaller living quarters for more people- and against single parent families. They are used for gentrification type zoning, to keep out undesirables. Enforcement is selective, targeting minorities. These rules can force families to live in separate locations, at higher cost. It is time FHEO got on this.

When you condemn substandard housing, you are condemning people to live in housing they cannot afford. Stop giving loans to developers in return for them turning apts into Section 8. I was happy living in an apt for $450/month. After a developer got a HUD loan and renovated the building, my rent increased to $650/month, which was very hard for me. It was fine for those qualifying for Section 8, but I just missed qualifying and did not really want it anyway. I was happy living there with no dishwasher, thin windows, etc - yet a place I could afford without gov assistance. There is really no such thing as affordable housing for the poor if you make everything conform to high standards. That just makes everyone dependent on the government.