House Panel to Examine Continuing Foreclosure Crisis

The media might be turning their attention to the looming crisis in commercial real estate, but some on Capitol Hill still doubt that the White House is doing enough to curtail residential foreclosures.

With that in mind, the House Oversight Committee’s Domestic Policy subpanel will hold a hearing next Tuesday on the administration’s anti-foreclosure efforts, Chairman Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) announced today. An unnamed Treasury Department official will testify, Kucinich says — and will have some explaining to do. Despite the administrative moves to stem the housing crisis, foreclosures topped 315,000 last month — up 15 percent from the year before, according to RealtyTrac, an online foreclosure database.

The White House isn’t blind to the problem. Today, President Obama will announce a reported $1.5 billion in federal funds to help stabilize the housing markets in California, Michigan, Florida, Nevada and Arizona — five states that have been pummeled by the housing collapse. Still, that the administration wasn’t more aggressive tackling the housing crisis — which, after all, was the root of the entire downturn — might be its biggest failure of the last year.