MFH News and Views: Progressive “ Think Tank” Endorses Secondary Financing Market for Rural Manufactured Housing
“You’ve got to be very careful if you don’t know where you are going, because you might not get there.” – Yogi Berra
The road towards achieving manufactured home financing equality seems to have been headed towards a dead end, until now. For years politicians and bureaucrats have steadfastly ignored or stonewalled the implementations of common sense legislation and policies that clearly were intended to utilize manufactured homes as an important component in relieving the serious, ever-deepening U.S. affordable housing crisis.
Affordable housing solutions don’t appear to be an agenda item with either presidential campaign, especially the Democrat nominee. The only subject either candidate has even mentioned is the Dodd/Frank financial reform legislation rules that severely and wrongly punish the retail manufactured home sector. Donald Trump has vowed to abolish or amend Dodd/Frank. Hillary Clinton strongly suggests she will strengthen the provisions of Dodd/Frank and make it even more punitive.
Dodd-Frank was enacted 5 years ago today & has been under GOP attack ever since. As president I’ll defend Wall Street reform & go beyond. -H
— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) July 21, 2015
Donald Trump has at least advocated his desire to address the nation’s affordable “home ownership crises” as opposed to the affordable “housing crises,” pointing out that the percentage of American homeownership is at its lowest level in over 50 years, and that he will address this “disaster” if he is elected POTUS, albeit no details have been forthcoming.
American homeownership rate in Q2 2016 was 62.9% – lowest rate in 51yrs. WE will bring back the ‘American Dream!’ pic.twitter.com/yI4Q8FHRjp — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 30, 2016
But wait! There is a glimmer of hope coming from a most unlikely source that could change this narrative down the road. The Center for American Progress ( read: “think tank”) has recently released a report entitled: Opportunities for Promoting Credit for Affordable Housing in Rural America, which promotes manufactured housing as an important component in addressing the affordable housing dilemma, and most importantly suggests the Duty to Serve manufactured housing rule mandated by Congress two years ago should be utilized by government-backed financiers, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
You might ask, who are Center for American Progress? CAP is a liberal policy and research advocacy organization that carries a lot of weight within the Democratic Party. The founder of the Center for American Progress (“think tank”) is none other than John Podesta, Chairman of Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign.
Following are excerpts from the CAP roundtable discussions and conclusions that reference manufactured homes:
Concluding:
… more sage advice from Yogi: “When you come to a fork in the road, take it.”
In the below Youtube video, Bruce Savage, founder of the AHA (American Housing Advocates) asked reps for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac where they thought manufactured homes fit in the mission statements on affordable housing for both agencies.
