Housing Action Illinois hosted its annual conference in Bloomington at the DoubleTree hotel Oct. 17-18 with the theme “housing matters.”
David Berenbaum, deputy assistant secretary for housing counseling at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development [HUD], gave a keynote speech on “The State of Play & Priorities at HUD” to around 400 attendees of the conference.
In a virtual conversation with WGLT, Berenbaum shared that HUD has a variety of programs to ease the burden of homeownership, help with rental assistance and reduce homelessness.
His speech, Berenbaum said, highlighted how the future generation of homeowners can start to prepare.
The fastest-growing group becoming unhoused in the nation is senior citizens, he added.
“And that’s because of the financial challenges that they are facing,” Berenbaum said. “Baby Boomers have not adequately saved for retirement and (that) includes those who rent as well as those who own homes.”
Housing supply and affordability are concerns, he said, but HUD and its partners — including Housing Action Illinois — are working to help in those areas.
WGLT’s Melissa Ellin spoke to Berenbaum about what McLean County can do about it, and what programs HUD offers that might help.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
WGLT: As the rest of the rest of the nations is facing a housing shortage, is seeing increased homelessness, so is Bloomington-Normal. We're also uniquely positioned because of the boom with Rivian and Ferrero. How do HUD programs trickle down to McLean County?
Barenbaum: Most consumers don't really understand the full extent of the federal government's support for local services. HUD's approach is to send funds to entitlement communities, and who are the entitlement communities? They're states and localities, and so it's critical work that we're doing through supporting the state of Illinois, Indiana, for example, we're also providing support through the HOME Investment Partnerships Program, the Community Development Block Grant program, and other programs that meet the needs of particular populations. It could be low to moderate-income consumers through the provision of Section 8 rental assistance. It could be consumers who are using the Section 8 Housing Choice Voucher Program to move from tenancy to homeownership. So HUD plays a critical role, but we're delighted that we do it in partnership with our local partners. But behind the scenes, many people don't know that we're doing that.
Are there any new initiatives, new programs that have started, or are starting that Bloomington, Normal, McLean County, can become a part of?
I think that there are any number of opportunities, and one of them is we need to increase public awareness about the availability of all these programs and services. Our office is working with Housing Action Illinois and all of their partners to, in fact, do a public awareness campaign so consumers can speak with housing counselors and learn more about what programs are available to help them realize their financial or housing goals, which is so important. I mean it's such an important part of our life. The area is a really interesting mix of what I'll call urban and certainly rural, agricultural and other providers in the space. It's a really dynamic economy because of that, from what I saw and from speaking with folks who live there, yesterday. And so there are a lot of opportunities for working with the state and working with the locality to attach more federal dollars to the community. Of course, that's dependent on Congress and appropriations, but it's a very exciting time.
You're mentioning some of these programs, and I'm thinking to myself, what are the ways that people actually access them.
Clearly, one of the issues being identified by everyone at the conference was the need for more affordable housing, and that is an area that, of course, the state and localities are responsible for local zoning and other means to create more affordable housing. But it can be done in partnership with the federal government, because we want to see and we have created ways to fund initiatives that will create more innovative housing, that use inclusive zoning, that are mixed housing stock to have low moderate-income, and then housing also for middle income and other folks to live in as well.
