Carol Galante led affordable development firm Bridge Housing before President Barack Obama tapped her to serve in the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. 

Blanca Torres
Reporter- San Francisco Business Times

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Carol Galante, who made her mark on the Bay Area as a trailblazer for affordable housing, now applies her passion for housing policy on the federal level.

Galante served for years as executive director of Bridge Housing and had previously been executive director of Eden Housing before heading to Washington D.C. a few years ago.

President Barack Obama recruited Galante to serve in the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, where she is assistant secretary, and also serves as acting Federal Housing Administration Commissioner.

The mortgage crises of 2008 and subsequent downturn shook the real estate industry giving public officials like Galante with plenty of issues to address.

She recently sat down with the San Francisco Business Times to talk about her role, the future of foreclosures, the role of FHA financing in the housing industry and what she misses most about the Bay Area.

San Francisco Business Times: You’re tracking housing all over the country, can you talk about how the Bay Area compares with the rest of the nation?

Carol Galante: It’s very, very micro market in terms of how different areas are doing. Even within California what we see are some incredible strengths and then neighborhoods that still have some significant challenges.

SFBT: Since you’ve taken on this role, what have been the greatest challenges you’ve had to deal with?

CG: The depth of the housing crisis. When I was thinking about leaving the Bay Area, at least temporarily, and going to Washington, we knew there were challenges, but they’ve been deeper, and more intractable than any of us would have expected. We saw the crisis kind of evolve over time.

Blanca Torres covers East Bay real estate for the San Francisco Business Times.

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Article source: http://www.bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco/blog/real-estate/2012/10/carol-galante-talks-hud-fha.html

But after all the grand fanfare, with impressive deals made in anticipation of city funding contributions and millions of dollars raised for design and preliminary development, the harsh reality of the national housing meltdown brought the dream crashing to a halt. Public housing residents who have been repeatedly disappointed are back in limbo, living day-to-day in homes that — in many cases — are vermin-infested, lack heat, have broken walls, ceilings or windows, and are consistently rated as dangerous and life-threatening.

In U.S Department of Housing and Urban Development inspections, a score of at least 60 out of 100 is considered passing. Scores at the eight public housing projects supposed to be upgraded by Hope SF range from 51 to 65 — and HUD found “life-threatening conditions present” at all of them.

For decades, running well into the early ’90s, the rundown condition of San Francisco’s public housing was a disgrace to The City. Executive managers were ousted and angry federal reports blasted the projects’ inadequate upkeep. Then between 1994 and 2006, money from the federal Hope VI program successfully revitalized public housing in the Mission, North Beach, Western Addition, Hayes Valley and Bernal Heights.

But the money from Washington eventually disappeared. Newsom tried to continue the work by assembling one of his bolder programs. Hope SF was a complex package partnering with private or nonprofit developers who would make money by building market-rate condos in the area. However, with the housing market and real estate financing limping along in the Bay Area, four years after Hope SF began, only two of its sites — in Hunters Point and the Bayview — actually have the public funds to move ahead.

Funding has run dry for six other developments, including the 769-unit Sunnydale housing project, sites atop Potrero Hill and in the Western Addition. The dismal news arrived in The City’s March report outlining San Francisco’s next decade of development: City Hall needs $127 million for infrastructure upgrades such as utilities, street paving and drainage before money becomes available to finish the public housing rebuild.

The fact remains that Hope SF made a four-year-old unfulfilled promise to San Franciscans whose needs have been shoved back to the end of the line for a disgracefully long time.

There can be no arguing about how difficult today’s municipal spending constraints are. But simply giving up and leaving Hope SF on the back burner will only worsen the problems plaguing these low-income communities. This is a time to try moving beyond the bureaucratic envelope. Some ways should be found to sweeten the developer deals so they become more attractive to private funding. It would seem that a task force of creative business people ought to be able to find some way to move Hope SF forward.

Article source: http://www.sfexaminer.com/opinion/editorials/2011/04/san-francisco-public-housing-shouldn-t-be-left-hopeless