President Obama made a rare admission of a policy misstep Wednesday, acknowledging that his administration failed to provide enough support to struggling homeowners and recognize the scope of the nation’s housing crisis.
Despite predictions by Obama’s advisers that the housing market would rebound by now, real estate prices are falling once again. And the administration’s efforts to push banks to modify the mortgages of families who missed their monthly payments have been widely criticized as lacking.
Obama first raised the issue Wednesday when a questioner during a town hall event asked what mistakes the president had made in handling the economy.
“The continuing decline in the housing market is something that hasn’t bottomed out as quickly as we expected,” Obama responded.
Later, he added, that his administration’s efforts to help struggling homeowners were “not enough.”
“And so we’re going back to the drawing board,” he said.
The housing issue threatens to loom over Obama’s reelection campaign, with foreclosures piling up and real estate markets in turmoil in pivotal swing states such as Florida and Nevada, which voted for him in 2008.
Obama has not often discussed the housing crisis with much of his time in Washington and on the campaign trail focused on job creation and deficit reduction.
But the issue repeatedly came up Wednesday as Obama conducted his first ever town hall meeting via Twitter.
Read more at The Washington Post.