Julian Castro

Updated 2,013 Days AgoPublic

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An Obama Administration alum who had served as HUD Secretary, he has about the politics you'd expect: big progressive talk in the abstract, but often falling back down on traditional neoliberal ideas once it gets down to the details, like when asked about San Francisco's homelessness problem he talked of streamlining development rather than any mention of regulations or the fact that there are currently tens of thousands of vacant units, and his current progressive talk elides, for example, the long battles activist groups had to get him to correct at all the programs he ran as Secretary of Housing and Urban Development that were far more friendly to moneyed interests than those of the people his office was supposed to be supporting:

At issue is the Distressed Asset Stabilization Program, started in 2010 to allow mortgages going toward foreclosure to be sold to what HUD calls “qualified bidders and encourages them to work with borrowers to help bring the loan out of default.”

The progressives attacking Castro say they believe the mortgages should be sold instead to nonprofits and other institutions that would care more about the communities involved. What Castro’s done, they say, has essentially amounted to a fire sale for Wall Street firms.

Rep. Raúl Grijalva (D-Ariz.), co-chairman of the Congressional Progressive Caucus and one of Sanders’ few endorsers in Congress, complained about the program to Castro last week in a letter obtained by Politico.

“Your own Distressed Asset Stabilization Program, which was designed to help right the wrongs of the meltdown years, has been selling homes that once belonged to the families I’ve spoken with at rock-bottom prices to the Wall Street entities that created this situation in the first place,” Grijalva wrote.