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58 [for FHA IT funding] you've been asking for," and that was $20 million. We had broad bipartisan support to move forward with our plan, which we went to the Hill regularly to outline for them and to brief them on the progress. So, we put a team together led by some career staff, most of whom are still working on this. We had our CIO involved and a lot of the program staff, some of the political staff, but it was driven mainly by the career staff, and most of it was just common sense. We talked with originators, we talked with servicers, we talked with the people that work in claims. e first module we rolled out in February of last year, 2020, was the claims module, not even knowing what COVID-19 would become. Over the course of weeks, we were able to accept claims electronically. Fast-forwarding to this past year, even today, I don't know how many of those 1.2 million loans will end up in a claim, but could you imagine if we were still doing that with paper instead of submitting them electronically? ey would have been stacking up in the Homeownership Centers, 10 feet high. at alone showed why the modernization effort was so important. Congress has since given FHA another $20 million and another $20 million, so they're up to about $60 million. For a while, we were rolling out a new module every 30, 40 days. en, of course, a new team came in, and they're in charge now. ey're going to do things the way they want to. But I think they'll see, as we saw, that Catalyst is needed. It's data-centric architecture, it moves away from paper, it's faster, it's more efficient, and it no longer makes FHA the weakest link in the chain. at was vitally important, so I'm optimistic they'll continue making the improvements that it needs and working on things of that nature. How do you think things might have played out differently during your final months or final year if the pandemic hadn't happened? Well, we were first working on a housing finance reform plan, which we had delivered to the White House in late 2019. So, speaking for FHA, we were still able to cross some of those things off the list. en, we were looking to make some more improvements to the reverse mortgage program. en, in mid to late 2019, Secretary Ben Carson asked us to take a long look at minority homeownership, in particular African Americans, and what we could do to responsibly open the aperture a little. So, we did some good work on that, but when February/ March 2020 hit, our focus turned completely to dealing with COVID-19. And while you've got to be able to fly the plane and fix it at the same time, that was still largely our focus till the day we left. On the topic of minority homeownership, are there two or three things you can think of that would help on that front? e one thing we don't want to do is put families in homes that aren't ready to be homeowners. e hard work begins after you move in. It's not cheap. Beyond the mortgage, it's not cheap to be a homeowner: the maintenance, the repairs, the utilities, things of that nature. But we've got to look at some things we can do in housing counseling earlier. Stress the importance of getting people on a pathway to homeownership because, ultimately, that's what it is. It's a journey; it's a pathway. ere are things we can do with down payment assistance. What we didn't want to do was re-live what transpired in the housing boom. We got a little too creative in some of these mortgage products. But that said, FHA is still the hallmark of minority homeownership in America. A third of endorsements each year go to minorities. As a matter of fact, about this time last year, we got a little over 40% of endorsements for FHA borrowers to minorities. FHA had never reached that high. e GSEs lag behind that on a percentage basis somewhat. I know they were working hard on doing more in that area as well. And for our part, FHA's done a pretty good job. Looking back at your career, what are some accomplishments you're most proud of? One guiding principle's always been, whether you're a Democrat or Republican, you want to leave the place better than how you found it. Political events, domestic or international, ebb and flow. ey sometimes work to your advantage; they sometimes work to your detriment. You have no control over them, so it can make it more challenging to get things done than you'd like. Congress has a funny way of waiting until there's a catastrophe before they get at it. With 9/11, who could have foreseen something of that magnitude happening? In the aftermath of that, I found myself running the Office of Cabinet Affairs at the White House, being the White House's primary point of contact for the shuttle Columba accident and working with the Accident Investigation Board was something again you never, ever envision. All of a sudden, the Chief of Staff is telling me, "We want you to be the White House point of contact for this catastrophe." Unlike when the Challenger exploded, and people said, "We've got to get the Shuttle going again," after the Columbia, people were questioning, "Why are we flying this shuttle 20 years later?" at led to a big pivot and charting a new path for America's space program in 2004, which subsequent Administrations have made some changes to. Having a hand in that, having a big hand in the aftermath of the housing collapse, and certainly in our nation's response to COVID-19, I knew Americans weren't interested in excuses. ey just wanted help; they wanted results. So, we left the HUD building on January 20 with our heads held high. We had done a good job for the citizens, for the country, and the taxpayers. You've served under presidential administrations on both sides of the aisle and worked with career politicians across the spectrum. What do you think is the secret to building consensus and collaboration so you can get things done? Excellent question. You have to go into it with the mentality of "I'm going to get stuff done." I could care less about the politics of it. I'm sure there's a Republican way; I'm sure there's a Democrat way. But at the end of that, there's the right way too. It requires a little bit of diplomacy and a lot of listening and maybe some negotiations, but you want to get stuff done at the end of the day. It's rarely you get everything you want, and this is the most challenging step. You go in there, and you want these 10 things. If you can walk out with six of them, or even half of them, at the end of the day, both parties are better for it, and certainly, the American people are better for it. So I try to be collaborative. I try to listen to folks. I try not to be partisan at all. When I was a holdover in the Obama administration, when Shaun Donovan got confirmed, he returned to the HUD building Cover Story By: David Wharton

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