On April 19, MHI staff met with Teresa Payne, the new Associate Deputy Assistant Secretary for Regulatory Affairs and Manufactured Housing. Payne has been with HUD since 1996. She served as an attorney with the Office of General Counsel working on RESPA issues and most recently as the Director of the Office of Business Development in the Office of Housing Operations. In addition to giving her brief introduction to manufactured housing and its critical role in the affordable housing market, MHI outlined the industry priorities for 2010 and beyond.

MHI discussed and urged that action be taken on the following key issues:

• The lack of consumer financing continues to be the primary impediment to increased growth in the industry.
• HUD must issue the long awaited FHA Mortgagee Letter implementing the Title I reforms authorized by Congress in 2008 as quickly as possible.
• Ginnie Mae is prepared to re-enter to manufactured housing market to provide a secondary financing for manufactured home loans as soon as the FHA Title I Mortgagee Letter is finalized. This is a vital step to bringing liquidity back into the marketplace.
• HUD should move forward to finalize the proposed changes to the Manufactured Home Construction and Safety Standards (MHCSS) as recommended by the Manufactured Housing Consensus Committee, which have not been acted upon at HUD since 2005.

Additionally, MHI briefed Payne on the importance of preemption to our HUD code, and the need for HUD to take a stronger role to enforce preemption when states and local municipalities attempt to impose requirements that go beyond what is required by the HUD Code.

MHI looks forward to working with Payne and HUD staff on advancing the industry’s agenda.

MHI members can contact Lois Starkey at lstarkey@mfghome.org with any questions.