Cabrera, Katrina, and the GO Zone bill

- Earlier this week the House passed HR 4440, the Gulf Opportunity Zone hurricane relief bill. Novogradac notes the bill would temporarily increase low-income housing tax credits in the designated Zones and would give them a special Difficult Development Area status.

- Newly sworn Assistant Secretary for Public and Indian Housing Orlando Cabrera, interviewed in GovExec, offers some details on his personal history, plus comments on the new operating subsidy rule and on the Katrina recovery. E.g.:

We've had a good amount of success [with the Katrina Disaster Hurricane Assistance Program]. We're trying to encourage people to utilize it, and believe it or not, it's tough. When a hurricane hits, there is this myth that [people] go and live in hotels. They don't. Or that they go and live in shelters. They do, for a very short while. Most folks go live with friends and family. And, notwithstanding everything we've read in the press about people not wanting to go home, they desperately want to go home. That's what they know. And if they don't now, they will.

-Federal Housing Finance Board to meet this coming Wednesday.