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HUD's Office of Community Planning and Development (CPD) Update: July 2016
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| July 2016
CPD Leadership: Harriet Tregoning
Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary
Office of Community Planning and Development
Harriet Tregoning leads the Office of Community Planning and Development (CPD) at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). She previously led HUD’s Office of Economic Resilience, helping regions, cities, counties, and towns across the country build a strong foundation for a diverse and prosperous economy based on enhancing quality of place, economic opportunity, fiscal stability, transportation choice, and affordability.
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 | CPD Leadership: Marion McFadden
Deputy Assistant Secretary for Grant Programs
Office of Community Planning and Development
Marion McFadden is the Deputy Assistant Secretary (DAS) for Grant Programs, Office of Community Planning and Development (CPD). Marion oversees the Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) program, CDBG disaster recovery, the HOME Investment Partnerships Program, the Housing Trust Fund, and the Office of Environment and Energy.
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On July 8, 2015, HUD announced a final rule, Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing (AFFH), to provide communities that receive HUD funding with data and planning tools to help them meet the longstanding fair housing obligation. The rule represents a major milestone for reform to HUD’s fair housing planning requirements and will be a significant focus for CPD and its grantees over the coming years as it is implemented. As HUD Secretary Julián Castro affirmed in announcing the rule, “this important step will give local leaders the tools they need to provide all Americans with access to safe, affordable housing in communities that are rich with opportunity.”
HUD’s final rule defines AFFH as taking meaningful actions to address significant disparities in housing needs and in access to opportunity, replacing segregated living patterns with truly integrated and balanced living patterns, transforming racially and ethnically concentrated areas of poverty into areas of opportunity, and fostering and maintaining compliance with civil rights and fair housing laws.
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Last year, President Obama declared that bridging the digital divide is one of the greatest challenges facing America in the 21st Century. “Internet is a public utility, like water” says HUD Secretary Julián Castro. Secretary Castro demonstrated the power of digital connectivity in the classroom by hosting a simultaneous real-time Google Hangout with students across the country. ConnectHome is helping to bring digital connectivity to low-income families from coast to coast.
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What is ConnectHome?
ConnectHome is about building local partnerships to create access to the Internet at home. HUD is collaborating with EveryoneOn and US Ignite, who worked with private- and public-sector leaders to build local partnerships and gather commitments that will increase access to the Internet for low-income Americans. These partnerships will bring broadband, technical assistance, and digital literacy training to students living in public and assisted housing across America. |
Cox Communications Announces Major Effort to Close the Digital Divide with HUD’s ConnectHome Initiative
Cox Communications announced on April 14, 2016, a major investment in its efforts to narrow the digital divide through its support of HUD’s ConnectHome initiative. Cox Communications is extending its Connect2Compete low-cost Internet offering to any HUD-assisted household with school-aged children within Cox’s service area. Cox operates six (6) clustered cable systems in 18 States: Arizona, Arkansas, California, Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Nebraska, Nevada, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Rhode Island, Virginia. It is the first Internet service provider within the ConnectHome umbrella to extend such an offering throughout its entire nationwide footprint. This investment from Cox Communications has the potential to impact nearly 250,000 students across the Nation currently residing in a HUD-assisted home.
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HUD’s Secretary Julián Castro and the Rockefeller Foundation announced the winners of the $1 billion National Disaster Resilience Competition (NDRC) on January 21, 2016. “Throughout the competition, States and communities began to transform the way they think about disaster recovery and resilience” said Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary Harriet Tregoning. Secretary Castro traveled to Norfolk, Virginia, where he joined Governor Terry McAuliffe in announcing the winners of the competition.
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Demand for affordable housing is outpacing supply in metro areas all across the country. This forces families to spend a greater share of their income on housing and limits housing choice. In response, cities are exploring new ways, such as Accessory Dwelling Units (ADUs), to increase the affordable housing supply while preserving neighborhood character and creating opportunity for homeowners. Accessory Dwelling Units, sometimes referred to as “granny flats,” are additional living quarters on single-family lots that are separate from (but often contiguous to) the primary dwelling unit such as converted garages or carriage houses.
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HUD is proud to be partnering with KaBOOM!, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Target, Playworld, and the National Endowment for the Arts in the Play Everywhere Challenge.
The Play Everywhere Challenge, a national competition, will award $1 million in prizes of up to $50,000 each for the best replicable, scalable innovations in city redevelopment and design that help make play easy, available, and fun for kids and families. The Challenge, which closed on May 31, 2016, was developed by KaBOOM! in collaboration with the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Target, HUD, the National Endowment for the Arts, and Playworld. The selected applicants will be those that know their communities best and understand where kids and families can benefit most from increased spaces and chances to play. The funded projects will be creative, replicable solutions to make play a way of life in everyday and unexpected places—sidewalks, vacant lots, bus stops, open streets, and beyond—especially in communities where families struggle to make ends meet. Further, the projects will allow kids and families to play along the way to where they are going, rather than making a place to play a destination (like a playground). KaBOOM! will award grants up to $50,000 each in late summer 2016.
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Secretary Castro announced on May 4, 2016, that HUD allocated nearly $174 million through the Nation’s Housing Trust Fund (see list of State allocations below). The Housing Trust Fund is a new affordable housing production program that will complement existing Federal, State, and local efforts to increase and preserve the supply of decent, safe, and sanitary affordable housing for extremely low- and very low-income households, including families experiencing homelessness.
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