Reformers come and go, but HUD abides

I'm sure many of you are concerned about how last night's election will impact grants. I'll soon write a post on this topic. In the meantime, enjoy this post,m written around the time of the 2008 election, which illustrates how federal agencies and grant programs survive the best efforts of reformers from the right and left. New LinkedIn Newsletter from Seliger + Associates: Go to www.seliger.com to sign up for FREE GRANT ALERTS and click on BLOG to read more than 600 posts about grant writing at Grant Writing Confidential.

Sudhir Venkatesh*, a Columbia University Sociologist, wrote “To Fight Poverty, Tear Down HUD,” and in it he suggests imploding HUD (like the infamous Pruitt-Igoe Housing Project) to increase regional collaboration. Having just finished a HUD proposal, it made me think about HUD’s evolution and previous attempts to reform the agency. Venkatesh gives a brief overview of HUD’s emergence in 1965 and its mission to carry on the Progressive Era’s notion that slums are the root of urban problems, rather than the inhabitants—see here for detail. Still, Venkatesh argues that HUD had outlived its usefulness and needs to be eliminated or reconstructed. Click here to continue reading.