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U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development Secretary Julián Castro said the Department will continue to focus on its top priorities in 2015 with the 45 billion dollar budget allotted as part of the Consolidated and Further Continuing Appropriations Act of 2015, despite the lack of funding for some key HUD initiatives. Among those priorities are securing sustainable housing for American individuals and families, preserving rental house assistance for poor Americans, and ending homelessness.
Two of HUD's key initiatives that will continue under the budget allotted in fiscal year 2015 are the Choice Neighborhoods Initiative – which concentrates on rebuilding and revitalizing blighted neighborhoods – and the bringing the HUD-Veterans Affairs Supportive Housing program into tribal lands to help end homelessness among Indian veterans. HUD will not receive funding in 2015 for its initiative to end chronic homelessness in 2016 and its Homeowners Armed With Knowledge program, a pilot program designed to further incorporate housing counseling into the homebuying process.
The number of U.S. homeowners who owe more on their mortgage than their home is worth has fallen off by nearly half in the last two years. In a report released this week, property data company Zillow estimated that 8.7 million homeowners living in the nation's top housing markets were underwater on their mortgage as of the end of the third quarter, putting the country's negative equity rate at 16.9 percent. The U.S. underwater rate peaked at 31.4 percent in 2012's first quarter.
