WASHINGTON - President-elect Barack Obama's nomination of Shaun Donovan to head the Department of Housing and Urban Development is a "brilliant choice" because state and local housing finance agencies will benefit from Donovan's vast knowledge of bond financing and his thick resume of working on affordable housing initiatives, advocates said yesterday.
Donovan, who would have to be formally nominated by Obama after he becomes president and confirmed by the Senate, left his position as chairman of the New York City Housing Development Corp. and commissioner of the city's Department of Housing Preservation and Development to work on the Obama campaign.
He will reinvigorate the department, housing lobbyists said. He previously worked in President Bill Clinton's administration as acting federal housing commissioner and deputy assistant secretary for multifamily housing for HUD.
Donovan was in charge of implementing New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg's $7.5 billion new housing marketplace plan to build or preserve 165,000 units for low- and moderate-income families, which could provide housing for up to 500,000 residents by 2013.
"After two years, they're more than halfway there. He knows how to get things done and he's very good at housing policy," said John Murphy, director of the National Association of Local Housing Finance Agencies. "He is intimately familiar with bond financing, and the use of tax credits with bonds and without."
Murphy thinks Donovan will be a "voice for wanting to get the housing bond market up and running again," possibly by enticing Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac back into the market to buy housing bonds - an action that NALHFA has been pushing.
Barbara Thompson, executive director of the National Council of State Housing Agencies, said as chairman of New York's HDC, Donovan "understands the importance of the housing bond program" and has been a "huge advocate" for it in New York.
"He brings so much more than just knowledge of the HUD programs; he has deep knowledge of the tax-exempt bond programs and the tax-credit programs. To us, that's an enormous advantage," Thompson said.
Donovan received his bachelor's degree from Harvard University and has a master's degree in public administration from Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government.
