Bush housing secretary resigns amid mounting corruption charges

WSWS reports: US Secretary of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Alphonso Jackson announced his resignation from the Bush cabinet Monday, after weeks of public allegations of favoritism in the awarding of government contracts and punitive treatment of a local housing authority which had refused to make a business deal with a Jackson crony.

While the 62-year-old Jackson cited "personal and family matters" as the cause of his resignation, he became a casualty, at least indirectly, of the subprime collapse and the ensuing crisis in the broader home mortgage market.

Jackson stood side-by-side with Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson last December when the administration announced its "Hope Now Alliance," which relies on voluntary efforts by mortgage lenders to modify loans for homeowners facing foreclosure. With so much public and media attention focused on federal housing policy, it became a political liability to keep as head of HUD such a discredited political operator.

The most recent allegations against Jackson revolve around the HUD cutoff of funding to the Philadelphia Housing Authority after the PHA declined to turn over a disputed parcel of vacant land to a friend of Jackson's, songwriter and developer Kenny Gamble. The lot was valued at $2 million.

	Hud Chief Resigns Amid Criminal Probe	Associated Press	Mon Mar 31	4
	Top U.S. Housing Official Resigns	The New York Times	Mon Mar 31	1