The best way to have collaboration is to get people with common interests and passions together, talking, and this includes clients. They do this in industry trainings, in breakout groups, so this is nothing new. What needs to happen is to have Interest groups (committee sounds so bureaucratic) composed of people who share the same interest. Your enemies might be wearing your uniform, and your friends might not be wearing your uniform, so to speak. I used to love the TV show Babylon 5, because it showed some extremely diverse people who had to cooperate to survive and get anything done. Good metaphor- they were aliens, from different planets, even. There is nothing more fun than being in a group with people who share the same interest. Right now we have the Silo walls keeping us apart. If you put people together, who share the same interest, magic happens, as David Bohm notes. A lot of new ideas start emerging. There is a name in biology for a process you will have to invoke, to succeed with your plan. It is Emergence. In a 5 person company, there is probably not a HR specialist. In a 100 person company, there probably is, at least part time. The HR position is "emergent", as the system grows and gets more complex, new order emerges. Getting people into groups, to talk, fosters "emergence". You don't know what will work, in the activities that will accomplish your goals. I don't care how smart you are, you simply don't know. Even if you did know, you couldn't put it all on paper. What you need is to have a way to support the emergence of the ideas that, when implemented, will do the job. An extremely important role for HUD will be the Web backup for these interest groups, where ideas can be sorted intelligently, where resources can be identified and shared, where people with a wealth of new information realize that a set of ideas makes something possible which has never before been realized. The Internet itself is emergent, and we haven't begun to use or realize all the possibilities in it. The same is true for using the Internet to foster the emergence of solutions to the problems we face. Shaun, Ron: if you do nothing else, you need to do this. Period. This is more important than any other feedback on this forum.

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.

With the limited availability of spot awards, I would propose the HUD create a website or email address where supervisors, co-workers, shareholders, or general members of the public can nominate employees for an act of excellence. On a regular basis, HUD should recognize some of the best submissions, and give the employee a certificate. While this would be great for that employees morale, if HUD published a list of the acts of excellence, this could serve as a resource for the rest of the country. This list could inspire others to replicate the particular act of excellence at their office, and could elevate the overall output that we produce. This would be a low cost activity and should not involve a lot of time to administer.

Hold the Lenders and underwriters as well as the owners responsible in a monetary way for Multifamily defaults which occur within 3-5 years after final endorsement. Currently HUD pays out 99 cents on the dollar and there is no penalty to the owner for defaults. Many loans default in the first few years after underwriting. The underwriters and lenders have made their fees up-front and the owner many times has taken equity out on a refinance and there is no penalty for defaulting on the mortgage. I am suggesting that loans are either declining non-recourse with a penalty to the lender if they default in the first 3 year or there be some sort of enforecable monetary penalty to the lender and owner for a default.

Strat Plans are usually shelved after creation, because they don't really mean anything. People put them together kind of like I used to put Lincoln Logs together, when I was 5 years old, but at the end of playtime they all go back in the box. If you want to change that pattern, and God bless you if you do, you would start by having a COMPELLING VISCERAL VISUAL IMAGE at login, every time every staffer starts their computer. YouTube is full of motivational videos. Why the heck can't we have one? Get some compelling music, I don't know, Olympic marches, and walk through an ideal community. There are walking communities in this country now that would be a good place to start. Make the Strat Plan part of daily life. Let it infest every activity of the work day. Since the Outstandings are now rationed, you could take all that energy that no longer earns one Outstandings, and channel it into reporting useful data, anecdotes, whatever, into a main database, to support Strat Plan goals. I remember seeing that Coolio song used for HUD videos, years back, from Dangerous Minds. God it was depressing. How about something uplifting? Something that would make staff want to stand up and cheer? I hear Shaun described as a near genius. Genius counts for nothing, gentlemen, the only report card is results. Results start from people who have their hearts in what they do.

Many, if not most, of the Boards of PHAs do not understand their fiduciary responsibilities. HUD PIH Field staff and the IG auditors will never have adequate staffing levels to identify and help resolve egregious problems in risky PHAs which results in millions of dollars of misspent funds and unserved clients and communities. HUD and taxpayers must rely on the Boards of Directors to understand and carry out their fiduciary responsibilities. Suggested action: Include in the Management Plan a requirement that the PIH Hub and Program Center Directors send a welcome letter to new Chairmen/women and include a brief document that outlines their fiduciary responsibilities and in that letter offer a variety of training opportunities including in-person at NAHRO affiliate conferences, teleconferences hosted by the Field Office and online training created and produced by HUD/HQ. Include a question about whether Board members have been trained by HUD so that training of the Board impacts the PHA annual scores. On-site HUD monitoring should include a review of the file of completion training certificates of the Board members to ensure accurate reporting by the PHA.