FYI: When the Bush administration omitted funding for Housing and Urban Development’s HOPE VI program, which rebuilds run down housing projects with mixed-income dwellings, angry Congressional supporters forced HUD to go back and hold a series of meetings to study potential reforms. HUD convened the first of those last week, but angered some affordable housing advocates by failing to invite tenant representatives. According to a list provided by the National Low Income Housing Coalition, the 21 attendees included largely for-profit developers and, notably, the Manhattan Institute’s outspoken public housing critic Howard Husock, who celebrated the potential end of the Low Income Housing Tax Credit and recently described public housing’s legacy as the “key component of the vast welfare-support network that gave young women their own income and apartment if they gave birth to illegitimate kids.” [6/3/03]