Stemming the Housing Crisis: Federal Action to Reduce Foreclosures and the Fall of Home Values

***POSTPONED: Due to a weather related scheduling conflict with Chairman Barney Frank, this event has been postponed until further notice.***

February 15, 2008, 12:00pm – 2:00pm

About This Event

With the passage of a short-term economic stimulus package, Congress must now turn its attention to a broader multipronged Plan for Economic Recovery. Agenda item number one: a program to stem the vicious downward spiral in the housing market. More than 1% of U.S. households entered the foreclosure process last year, up by more than 75% over the previous rate. In addition to the pain caused to the affected homeowners, foreclosures affect our neighborhoods and communities. And foreclosures further depress house prices, which have plummeted by 8% from last year. How far must home values fall before we reach the bottom? Contagion from the housing crisis is drying up credit markets from prime housing to commercial paper to state and local government bonds. We face a vicious downward spiral, not just in house prices, but also in credit markets and the real economy. Could government action restore financial stability and confidence and head off a long period of real estate and community decline? If so, what steps can government take? If no action is taken now, what may the future hold?

Please join the Center for American Progress Action Fund, Chairman Barney Frank, and a panel of housing market economists and policy experts for a discussion of the how severe the crisis may yet become and a range of policy measures that Congress is considering.

Keynote Address:
Representative Barney Frank (D-MA), Chairman, House Financial Services Committee

Featured Panelists:
William A. Longbrake, Anthony T. Cluff Senior Policy Advisor, The Financial Services Roundtable
Ellen Seidman, Director, Financial Services and Education Project, Asset Building Program, New America Foundation and co-author, CAP's Saving America's Family Equity Proposal
Eric Stein, Senior Vice President, Center for Responsible Lending and President, Center for Community Self-Help
Susan Wachter, Professor of Financial Management; Professor of Real Estate, Finance and City and Regional Planning, Wharton School of Business, University of Pennsylvania.

Moderated by:
Sarah Rosen Wartell, Executive Vice President for Management, Center for American Progress Action Fund

Closing remarks: A View from the States
Lieutenant Governor Anthony G. Brown, Maryland [invited]

Location

Center for American Progress Action Fund
1333 H St. NW, 10th Floor
Washington, DC 20005

Biographies

Chairman Barney Frank has been in Congress since 1981. He is the Chairman of the Financial Services Committee. Previously he was a Massachusetts State Representative and an assistant to the Mayor of Boston. He has also taught at several Boston area universities.

Lieutenant Governor Anthony G. Brown has a distinguished career in public service to his community, the State of Maryland, and our nation. Since his inauguration on January 17, 2007, Anthony has established a full partnership with Governor Martin O'Malley. To implement their shared vision of Maryland's future, Governor O'Malley asked Anthony to chair the Governor's Subcabinet on Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC). As BRAC Chairman, Anthony leads the State's efforts in planning and coordinating the workforce creation, higher education, transportation and other infrastructure needs associated with the anticipated arrival of 28,000 BRAC households and 45,000 BRAC jobs during the next several years. In addition to these priorities, Governor O'Malley has asked Anthony to focus his efforts on the Administration's health care and broader higher education and workforce creation policies.

In 2005, Anthony deployed with the 353rd Civil Affairs Command in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom. As a senior military advisor in the Iraq Reconstruction Management Office of the United States Embassy, Anthony served with distinction in Baghdad, Fallujah, Kirkuk and Basra, working alongside local, military and diplomatic officials to bring humanitarian assistance to the people of a war-torn country. Anthony continues to serve our country in the United States Army Reserves and was promoted in December 2007 to the rank of Colonel. Anthony currently commands the 153rd Legal Support Organization.

William A. Longbrake is Vice Chair of Washington Mutual, Inc. (WaMu) and serves as the company's executive liaison with regulators, legislators, industry trade organizations, and government-sponsored enterprises. He is also on loan part time to the Financial Services Roundtable as the Anthony T. Cluff Senior Policy Advisor. He served as the first Chairman of the Roundtable's Housing Policy Council and is now Chairman Emeritus. He is active in the HOPE NOW Alliance and is serving as Chair of the HOPE NOW Data Working Group.

Longbrake began his career in Washington, D.C., serving in various positions for the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency as well as at the FDIC. Longbrake then joined WaMu in 1982 and was the CFO from then until 2002 with a short interruption in 1995 to be the CFO of the FDIC.

He earned his BA degree in economics from the College of Wooster in 1965, graduating with honors. He earned his master's degree in monetary economics in 1968 and his MBA in 1969 from the University of Wisconsin. He received his doctorate in finance from the University of Maryland in 1976.

Ellen Seidman is Director of the Financial Services and Education Project in the Asset Building Program of the New America Foundation. The project aims to provide national leadership on public policy issues related to expanding access to wealth-building financial services, especially for low- and moderate-income families; improving financial education; forging a new responsibility framework for consumer financial services in 21st century; and helping Americans to better manage their debt.  In addition to her work at New America, Ms. Seidman continues to serve as Executive Vice President, National Policy and Partnership Development at ShoreBank Corporation, the nation's first and leading community development and environmental banking corporation. She also serves as Chair of the Center for Financial Services Innovation, a ShoreBank nonprofit affiliate that helps financial services providers responsibly and sustainably serve underbanked consumers. Before joining ShoreBank, Ms. Seidman served as Senior Counsel to the Democratic staff of the Financial Services Committee of the U.S. House of Representatives. From 1997 to 2001, she was Director of the U.S Treasury Department's Office of Thrift Supervision, heading the 1,200 person bureau responsible for regulating more than 1,000 savings associations around the United States. She was also a director of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation and Chairman of the Board of the Neighborhood Reinvestment Corporation. From 1993 to 1997, Ms. Seidman served as Special Assistant for Economic Policy to President Clinton. She has also held senior positions at Fannie Mae, the United States Treasury Department, and the United States Department of Transportation. She holds a bachelor's degree from Radcliffe College, a law degree from Georgetown University Law Center, and an MBA in finance and investments from George Washington University.

Eric Stein is president of Center for Community Self-Help. Self-Help (www.self-help.org) is a nonprofit community development lender whose mission is to create ownership and economic opportunity for people of color, women, rural residents and low-wealth families and communities. It has provided over $5 billion in financing to over 55,000 home buyers, small business owners and nonprofits in North Carolina and across the nation, with a loss rate of less than 1%.

Mr. Stein is also senior vice president of Self-Help's affiliate, Center for Responsible Lending (www.responsiblelending.org), which is a nonprofit, nonpartisan research and policy organization dedicated to protecting homeownership and family wealth by working to eliminate abusive financial practices. Eric has testified in Congress for CRL on predatory mortgage lending and court-supervised modifications.

Mr. Stein was formerly executive director of CASA, a nonprofit organization that develops housing for primarily homeless persons with disabilities. In addition, he worked for Fannie Mae's Office of Low- and Moderate-Income Housing, Congressman David Price and U.S. Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Sam J. Ervin, III. Mr. Stein holds a law degree from Yale Law School and a B.A. from Williams College.

Susan Wachter is a Professor of Financial Management and Professor of Real Estate, Finance, and City and Regional Planning at the Wharton School of Business, University of Pennsylvania. Wachter has held many corporate and public sector leadership positions including: Academic Fellow, Urban Land Institute, 2003-2004; Advisory Board for Regulatory Research, National Association of Homebuilders, 2005-2006; Board of Directors, American Real Estate and Urban Economics Association, 2003-2006; and Blue Ribbon Committee on Housing Finance, 2005-2006.

Sarah Rosen Wartell is the Executive VP for Management for the Center for American Progress Action Fund. One of the original architects of CAP's business plan, she has been responsible for building the institution, overseeing its operations, and strategic planning from its founding. Sarah served in the White House in the Clinton Administration as Deputy Assistant to the President for Economic Policy and Deputy Director of the National Economic Council. Prior to serving at the White House, Sarah was a Deputy Assistant Secretary at the Federal Housing Administration in the Department of Housing and Urban Development. She has served as a consultant to the Millennial Housing Commission and the William J. Clinton Presidential Foundation. She also practiced law with the Washington, D.C. firm of Arnold & Porter and taught law and technology policy as an adjunct professor and visiting scholar at Georgetown University Law Center.