Obama Names Housing Director

Obama has tapped Shaun Donovan, the housing commissioner for New York City, to head up the Department of Housing and Urban Development. The 42-year-old Clinton White House veteran is highly qualified for the position, having worked in both the private and nonprofit sectors, in academe and in government. Since going to work for Mayor Michael Bloomberg in 2004, Donovan has helped expand affordable housing and create a fund to help nonprofit housing groups compete for private land sales. Donovan is valued for “fresh thinking” that’s “unencumbered by old ideology and outdated ideas,” Obama said in his weekly radio address today. “He understands that we need to move past the stale arguments that say low-income Americans shouldn’t even try to own a home or that our mortgage crisis is due solely to a few greedy lenders.”