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U.S. Government Asks Private Investors “What to Do” with 250,000 Empty Homes & the Grassroots Responds

In response to the Federal Housing Finance Agency’s (FHFA) recent Request for Information: Enterprise/FHA Asset Disposition (RFI), one letter, submitted to the FHFA on behalf of the Campaign to Restore National Housing Rights (Campaign) and its allies today, delivered the message that the RFI's bulk sales approach itself was inappropriate during an affordable housing crisis for what is essential "public" housing.

As expressed in the letter, grassroots groups and their allies, including the Campaign and NESRI, are dismayed to find the U.S. government again looking to feed the “speculative fever” of banks and private investors, while millions of U.S. families are homeless or on the brink of losing their homes to evictions and foreclosures.  These groups stand in unequivocal opposition to the Administration’s disposition plan for its 250,000 empty homes and are calling on the FHFA, Treasury, and Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) to issue an entirely new RFI tailored to ensure policies and practices meet basic human rights principles that challenge the conditions that have led to chronic homelessness, serial displacement, and extreme rent burdens.

 

See TruthOut.org's coverage and mention of the letter in this Huffington Post editorial.