Political Quotes

“I note many of the contractual arrangements, including the excessively large mortgages and excessive contract rents, are due to contractual agreements made by the Federal Government 20 or 30 years ago. Some excessive costs have resulted from some of the Federal regulations and standards, which could be characterized as onerous, that applied to these projects. Other costs are due to the very difficult areas where the projects were being built. They were trying to get people into areas where you would not normally build multifamily housing. This included going into rural areas where there is elderly population, or projects in depressed inner city areas where costs of construction were very high. Some of the multifamily housing in this portfolio represents the only--or certainly the best standard housing in many areas, or the only housing available to low-income families. Our purpose is to squeeze out the excessive subsidies. But we also have to be sensitive to the critical housing needs of the low-income families, and especially the elderly who were subsidized--assisted by the project. That is why this is a very difficult problem.”