REFERENCE Highlights of HUD Accomplishments 1997-1999.
Chronicles the "accomplishments under the leadership of HUD Secy Andrew Cuomo, who took office January 1997."
HUD's Web visitors learn that in 1999: "Secretary Cuomo established new Affordable Housing Goals requiring Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac—two government sponsored enterprises involved in housing finance—to buy $2.4 trillion in mortgages in the next 10 years. This will mean new affordable housing for about 28.1 million low- and moderate-income families.
Cuomo's historic action raised the required percentage of mortgage loans for low- and moderate-income families that the companies must buy from the current 42% of their total purchases to a new high of 50%—-----a 19% increase—in the year 2001."
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(From Village Voice report 8-5-08) Andrew Cuomo, the youngest HUD Secy in history, made a series of decisions between 1997 and 2001 that gave birth to the country’s current crisis.
Cuomo took actions that—in combination with many other factors—helped plunge Fannie and Freddie into the subprime markets without putting in place the means to monitor their increasingly risky investments.
Cuomo turned the Federal Housing Administration mortgage program into a sweetheart lender with sky-high loan ceilings and no money down, and he legalized what a federal judge has branded “kickbacks” to brokers that have fueled the sale of overpriced and unsupportable loans. (There were rampant rumors that Cuomo himself pocketed greatly from his HUD position.)
Three to four million families are facing foreclosure (as of 2008), and Cuomo is one of the reasons why....
SOURCE http://www.villagevoice.com/2008-08-05/news/how-andrew-cuomo-gave-birth-to-the-crisis-at-fannie-mae-and-freddie-mac/
Thanks for the link.