ABSTRACT
HUD and the Congress saw the specter of very large appropriations to restock the FHA insurance funds if the projects were to be foreclosed and buried. HUD and Congress were perfect candidates to be taken for a ride. They wanted dearly to believe that someone would come and take the projects off their hands. In the coinsurance program, HUD deregulated and took a fiscal shellacking. The mountainous HUD housing study after the moratorium produced only a molehill of evidence about the new construction segment. The importance of management can be gauged by looking at HUD's oldest subsidy program—the problem-laden public housing program. The right mix between federal control and local independence continues to evade HUD in a framework in which nearly all the money is federal. HUD continued in its fiscally prudent ways and by early 1971, sixty one authorities, that owned 400,000 units, were insolvent.
