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Indy Q&A: Region 9 Housing and Urban Development head discusses affordable housing, sustainability

Daniel Rothberg
Daniel Rothberg
Economy
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In September last year, Jimmy Stracner was sworn in to head up the U.S. Housing and Urban Development (HUD)’s Region 9 sector, which includes Nevada, California, Arizona, Hawaii and the U.S. territories. As a former state director for the Republican National Committee in Nevada and the Western States Political Director for the Trump campaign, Stracner knows the region well.

Although Stracner lives in Tracy, California near the region’s headquarters in San Francisco, he often comes back to Nevada and the states he represents to work with local governments on one of the most pressing issues in the West: affordable housing. In August, Stracner came to Reno to speak at a workshop focused on strategies to build green and affordable housing.

The Nevada Independent caught up with Stracner for a Q&A after his remarks.

Nearly one year into the job, Stracner discussed his priorities at the housing agency, the challenges that cities face and the role of the federal government in developing housing.

“We don’t get involved in the actual disputes within the community about how to build and where to build in a community,” Stracner said in the interview. “But we generally support political leadership that wants to build affordable housing and provide workforce housing.”

What right now is your main focus or goal at HUD?

As the regional administrator, we work for the secretary. We go out and carry out his priorities for the term. We have seven different priorities that we’re working on… But a big thing for us is creating programs and enhancing programs that help the residents that live in public housing and that [have] lived in these underserved communities for years [have] the opportunity to become self-sufficient — and we’re not talking about taking any subsidies away. We’re not talking about taking their vouchers or their housing away. That’s not what this is about.

It’s more than housing?

It’s more than housing. It’s the services. It’s the jobs programs. It’s the continuing education programs, whether it’s getting your G.E.D. or getting some kind of vocational training. It’s health and wellness — people who are not able to work because they have diabetes or gout or something that prohibits them from going out and doing that. It’s getting that kind of help.

One thing that has been a huge issue is affordable housing both here and in Las Vegas. Does HUD have any sort of position on how cities should deal with that? I know both Washoe County and Clark County have proposed expanding outward, building new housing stock on the edges of the cities. Does that make sense to you?

Absolutely. We at HUD would support any solution to the affordable housing crisis. Any solution is a good solution. What we are seeing on the West Coast, though, is the NIMBYs [Note: the acronym stands for Not In My Backyard] taking over and really making it challenging for communities and cities to have a housing plan that works for everybody.

The people who tend to be the most vocal don’t want new housing to come in — they don’t want the traffic; they don’t want the building; and they wouldn’t tell you this, but really what they are saying is they don’t want the people here. They don’t want the people who would be living in affordable housing. That’s what it’s really about. And it’s frustrating.

Do you see that in Nevada too?

I see that in California. I’ve seen that in Hawaii. I’ve seen it in every state that we have. I think in Nevada, since 87 percent of the state is owned by the federal government, there are some opportunities there to build on the outskirts of Las Vegas, expanding outwards. California does not have that luxury. A lot of times in San Francisco you have to build up so the density is an important issue to look at. But the federal government can’t build affordable housing.

So how do you work with cities on getting affordable housing built? It’s a huge issue in the Intermountain West if you look at Boise, Missoula or Reno. It’s the main issue.

We do have funds and programs for affordable housing. It’s not a cure, obviously. Then there would be housing. But we do have some programs there. So there are areas where cities can get a start. But our role traditionally is to provide the technical assistance in providing the strategy, creating the plans. We don’t get involved in the actual disputes within the community about how to build and where to build in a community. But we generally support political leadership that wants to build affordable housing and provide workforce housing.

Since the event is about sustainability, how does that play a role in what you do?

I provide support for communities that want to have these kinds of technologies and do green buildings. I provide the political support, if you will. What does my office do to drive that agenda? Again, it’s up to the communities to decide what they want on their own. If they come to us and say, ‘we want this,’ then we’re all for it. But having local control, especially in the housing realm, is so important.

What are the best strategies for creating affordable housing in the Intermountain West?

I think the biggest thing to do is to understand where you are actually at in affordable housing. We’ve seen communities kind of get ahead of their skis and say we need this but what Reno is doing is very important — this regional housing strategy. They started...with doing a study on the area and finding out exactly what the need is. What incomes can afford certain homes and how many of those homes we need to fulfill what the job market here is. The basic strategy has to be finding out exactly what you need first…

Once you do that, executing the plan and getting buy-in from the community is extremely important so you don’t have the Not in My Backyard People fighting you. Doing an environmental review is very important to make sure you are not harming the environment and make sure you’re not having that kind of negative support come your way, too... We’re a community of voters and when plans don’t work out, they blame political leadership… The citizens hold their mayors and their city councils and their county supervisors accountable for what they do. Going about it the right way for political leadership is the only way they can get this done. So that [first] study is really important. And Reno is doing the right thing.

You mentioned Reno’s regional plan. What are the next steps?

The next step in my view is getting the community on board with what they want. We’re going to support it as long as it meets the criteria and meets all the reviews and all the impacts to the community that we feel it should have. But having the community support is very important.

And there are other strategies. I was mentioning RAD [the Rental Assistance Demonstration Program]. RAD is something San Francisco has used. If you’ve been to San Francisco before, their public housing was atrocious before. They’ve really built some incredible public housing, housing that you would think millionaires live at. It’s that nice. I know there are some arguments against that but people deserve to live in a healthy, clean environment. Everybody deserves that. San Francisco has done a really good job of taking their public housing stock and converting it into mixed-use areas that have market units, public housing units — they have voucher units — and they are mixing all types of incomes together. If that’s something Reno wants to look at, I think they should.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

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