July 1, 2009 -- Declaring that "home is an essential source of family stability," HUD Secretary Shawn Donovan told 400 housing advocates in Chicago June 30 that he will try to shape a national housing strategy that connects housing affordability to education, transportation, environmental quality and healthcare.

Donovan said HUD is seeking out local programs that can work nationally -- HUD is "committed to spurring innovation at the local level" and bringing those ideas forward for others to see, he told the “Home For Working Families” conference – and is committed to "laying the foundation for sustainable growth."

In particular, Donovan pointed to HUD’s partnership with the Department of Energy on weatherization funds and a $100m energy innovation fund, sayng he hopes to use it to catalyze the home energy retrofit market.  “We need a comprehensive housing strategy" that recognizes that affordable rental housing opportunities are inseparable from economic opportunities, Donovan said in Tuesday’s keynote address to the conference, which was sponsored by the National Housing Conference and the Center for Housing Policy.

Donovan also said he would seek to:

• Bring funding stability and consistency to public housing and section 8 programs.  
• Capitalize the Affordable Housing Trust Fund. "If there isn't equal access to safe and affordable housing, there isn't equal access to opportunity. When you choose a home, you choose the school your child will go to, you choose transportation, you choose a community."  
• Further the Sustainable Communities initiative with a $150 million sustainability fund proposed in the new HUD budget 
• Enhance the Choice Neighborhoods program to better link housing to interventions in education, early childcare and other programs. "Planning communities in a more sustainable way is essential to creating economic opportunities" for those we are working to help.

"Too often, “Donovan said, “HUD hasn't been a catalyst for change, but a barrier to change.  And that needs to change."

The conference, which was also addressed by Bruce Katz of the Brookings Institution, former HUD Secretary Henry Cisneros and Carol Coletta of CEOs for Cities, held fascinating workshops on preservation, coalition-building, employer-assisted housing, advances in mixed-income and mixed-use development and various effective state and regional programs.