Over the weekend, President-elect Barack Obama announced that Shaun Donovan will become the new secretary of Housing and Urban Development.  Donovan, a trained architect, served in the housing agency under President Bill Clinton and has been commissioner of housing in the New York City government since 2004.  In Obama’s announcement, he said HUD will be a central part of his efforts to resolve the housing crisis.

“Expanding access to affordable housing isn’t just about caring for the least fortunate among us and strengthening our middle class,” Obama said as he announced his choice of Donovan in his weekly radio address. “It’s about ending our housing mess, climbing out of our financial crisis, and putting our economy on the path to long-term growth and prosperity.”

I’d expect Donovan to be supportive of the reverse mortgage business since he has so much experience with affordable housing.  In New York, he headed a $7.5 Billion New Housing Marketplace Plan to build and preserve 165,000 housing units for low- and moderate-income families, according to figures supplied by Obama’s transition team.   

Prior to joining the Bloomberg administration, Donovan worked at Prudential Mortgage Capital Company as managing director of its FHA lending and affordable housing investments. In the affordable housing arena, Prudential Mortgage Capital’s portfolio totaled more than $1.5 billion in debt.