John Rebchook is a former Rocky Mountain News reporter with more than 30 years of experience in writing and communications...
Ron Sims, the No. 2 executive at HUD, addresses an affordable housing conference on Wednesday in Breckenridge.
BRECKENRIDGE In the past, major federal departments such as the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, the Federal Transit Administration, and the Environmental Protection Agency, were separate “silos” that kept to their knitting, focusing on the mandates of their respective agency.
But under the Obama Administration, that has changed, top officials at HUD, the FTA and the EPA told more than 500 affordable housing leaders who gathered at the Beaver Run resort in this mountain community on Wednesday for the 21st Housing Colorado NOW! conference called Pathways to Progress. People from as far away as Nigeria attended, as well as Denver City Council member Rick Garcia.
Sims a keynote speaker
One of the keynote speakers was Ron Sims, deputy director of HUD, the No. 2 official at the agency with a $40 billion annual budget and 8,500 employees. Suns us the former executive for King County, Washington, the 13th largest county in the U.S., Sims helped fund 5,632 affordable housing units during a 12-year period.
Sims, at a luncheon on Wednesday, was joined by Terry Rosapep, regional administrator for Region 8 for the Federal Transit Authority, and Carol Rushin, acting regional administrator for Region 8 for the EPA. Region 8 includes Colorado. (A new HUD regional administrator could be named by the end of the year, several people told me during the housing conference.)
Sims began meeting individual groups at 7 a.m. on Wednesday, discussing a wide-variety of housing issues, including rural, urban, resorts, and “everything in between.”
HUD a community builder
Over and over again, Sims emphasized that HUD is “no longer a housing agency, but is a community building agency.”
And to to that, he wants people to be wiling to “roll up their sleeves,” and get to work,. He said if you are comfortable with the way things are, he said you are probably not up to the task. And what happens in Washington, D.C., pales compared to what happens at the local level.
“All extraordinary things happen from the bottom up, not from the top down,” he said at one point.
And that means working with other agencies, no longer creating “silos” for groups that don’t go beyond their own agency missions.
Rosapep, who described Sims as “wickedly smart and a nice guy,” agreed.
Agencies working together
Although the headquarters for HUD and the Department of Transportation are near each other in Washington, D.C, he said the two agencies did little together in the past.
That has all changed, he said.
At first blush, it might not seem like the transportation department does not have much to do with housing, he admitted.
“Our top priority is safety issues,” he said. “It’s also economic, livability and sustainability.”
He said one goal is to keep the cost of transportation as low as possible to help make the U.S. less dependent on foreign oil. But transportation is way to meet an end, not an end in itself, he said.
If consumers can spend less on transportation, they will have more money for things such as housing, he noted. (After the luncheon forum, Sims noted that is especially true in resort towns such as Summit County and the Vail Valley. He said people who work for the rich in these communities might be commuting to work for more than two hours each day and spending 30 percent or more of their gross income on transportation, leaving less money for housing and health. He said he will bring that to the attention of the Federal Housing Administration when he returns to Washington, D.C.)
Rosapep said that the “livability” is the “umbrella” that breaks down the silos between agencies, making them more integrated. For example, he said increasingly the transportation department wants to work with HUD to “integrate planning” on public-private partnerships such as transit oriented developments. Dozens of TODs, for example, could be built around FasTracks light rail stops.
Rushin, of the EPA, said this was the first housing conference she had attended.
Smart-growth sought
But there are many synergies between the EPA and housing, she said.
“We look at smart-growth patterns,” she said. “At the federal level, we don’t want to subsidize sprawl, even though that might be the easier route.”
She said for “25 years the mission of EPA,” has been to fight for “cleaner water, cleaner air and cleaner land,” she said. But now, it is looking to see what it can do to help the environment inside of housing, as well as outside.
“This is a new era for us,” she said.
One example: She is looking at efforts to reduce radon in homes, at the same time it is weatherizing them.
Pat Coyle, recently named the executive director of the Colorado Division of Housing, moderated the said that almost everyone attending the conference, speaks more than one language, evne if they don’t realize it.
“I speak housing,” he said, and urged audience members to become increasingly conversant in the various aspects of housing – especially now with money flowing from Washington to the local level. Following the lunch, Coyle told me he doesn’t think most people realize the huge impact housing has on the economy.
Spiritual side of Sims
David Zucker, who heads Zocalo Community Development in Denver, following the luncheon said that Sims had almost a “spiritual” aspect to his talk, and he indeed he did. Sims didn’t spend much time on specific programs, but told of telling his brother that he was going to die of cancer, and how he once danced with a young girl in a housing project in Seattle, who told her dream was to be a ballet dancer. Years later, she introduced herself after he gave a speech, and she let him know she had realized her dream.
“I like the whole idea of taking down the silos separating the agencies, and having them work together,” Zucker said. “I don’t think has ever happened before. This is the first time I have ever heard of it. It seems like they can overlap and help each others in a lot of ways. It’s very motivating and energizing to hear this. Of course, it’s not enough to just talk a good game – they also have to accomplish things. For that, we have to wait and see.”
Contact John Rebchook at JRCHOOK@gmail.com or 303-945-6865.
