Obama picks Donovan to lead HUD

President-elect Obama on Saturday announced Shaun Donovan
as his choice to run the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD).

Donovan currently serves under Mayor Michael Bloomberg as
a commissioner of Housing Preservation and Development in New York City.

{mosads}“With experience that stretches from the public sector to
the private sector to academia, Shaun will bring to this important post fresh
thinking, unencumbered by old ideology and outdated ideas,” Obama said in his
weekly radio address.

“He understands that we need to move past the stale
arguments that say low-income Americans shouldn’t even try to own a home or
that our mortgage crisis is due solely to a few greedy lenders,” Obama added. “He
knows that we can put the dream of owning a home within reach for more
families, so long as we’re making loans in the right way, and so long as those
who buy a home are prepared for the responsibilities of homeownership.”

In his address, the president-elect stressed the
importance of addressing the mortgage crisis to fix the country’s current
economic troubles.

“One in ten families who owns a home is now in some form
of distress, the most ever recorded. This is deeply troubling. It not only
shakes the foundation of our economy, but the foundation of the American Dream,”
he stated.

“To stem the rising tide of foreclosures and strengthen
our economy, I’ve asked my economic team to develop a bold plan that will
dramatically increase the number of families who can stay in their homes,”
Obama noted, pointing to the importance of HUD in this endeavor.

The president-elect argued that the problems cannot be
fixed by “doing things the old Washington way,” namely by “throwing money at
the problem.”

Obama praised Donovan as the right man to lead HUD in a
new direction.

“We need to approach the old challenge of affordable
housing with new energy, new ideas, and a new, efficient style of leadership.
We need to understand that the old ways of looking at our cities just won’t do,”
Obama stated. “That means promoting cities as the backbone of regional growth
by not only solving the problems in our cities, but seizing the opportunities
in our growing suburbs, exurbs, and metropolitan areas.”