At last week’s Republican National Convention, there
was hardly a
whisper about how Gov. Mitt Romney planned to solve the housing crisis. Since the housing bubble burst, home values
have plummeted, leaving millions of Americans paying off mortgages that are
worth more than the actual houses they own.
Couple that with the millions of families all across the country who have
either already lost or face the very frightening possibility of losing their
homes to foreclosure, and you have a very real problem that needs to be dealt
with now. And while Gov. Romney and
President Obama lay out their cases for how they plan to guide this country
through the economic crisis to recovery, they seem comfortable leaving families
in the dark about how they plan to stem the bleeding in the housing market.
To be fair, Democrats did turn the mic over to
California Attorney General Kamala Harris, who
highlighted one of the administration’s crowning housing achievements—the
historic $25 billion Department of Justice settlement between five of the
nation’s largest mortgage servicers and 49 state attorneys general. Perhaps we can take this as an indication
that the incumbent plans to run on his record.
Certainly, Obama has had victories worth mentioning—the historic
Countrywide settlement as well as the opening of the Consumer Financial
Protection Bureau both show that this administration is attempting to hold
banks accountable for unfair lending practices and is working to prevent
consumers from once again becoming victims of fraud.
Still, these are just a few of the building blocks necessary
to create a stronger, safer housing market, and quite frankly, these blocks
alone will not do the job. President
Obama needs to lay out a plan for American homeowners explaining how he is
going to turn this housing crisis around.
Is housing counseling for struggling homeowners going to be funded or
will it succumb to budget cuts? How does
principal reduction factor into housing policy and is it even on the
table? American homeowners don’t know because
the two candidates running for office won’t talk about it.
Last night, the President acknowledged the uphill
challenge of healing the economy: “When
the house of cards collapsed in the Great Recession, millions of innocent
Americans lost their jobs, their homes, their life savings, a tragedy from
which we’re still fighting to recover.” But
the eerie silence from both President Obama and Mitt Romney inspires more
concern than confidence over their ability to muster enough political will to
grapple with solutions. And what homeowners
need more than anything is the confidence that the leader of this country is in
their corner.
We need a commitment from both candidates that they
will work to make homeownership viable for all Americans. We need a plan from both candidates for how they
are going to stem foreclosures and protect American consumers from fraud. And most importantly, we need an
acknowledgement that this problem exists and is worth talking about during this
election.
