Obediah Baker, Sr.
Deputy Administrator
Multi-Family Housing
Rural Housing Service, USDA
Washington, D.C.
Addressing CARH:
I have one or two comments to add.
On the RHS/OIG (Office of Inspector General) Initiative. As you well
know, the results (or Findings) of that study are nothing earthshaking;
there
are copies of the report available. Hopefully, by the end of the month,
we’ll
have copies distributed to the State Offices.
I want to sing praises on the delinquency rate. We have some 455,000
units out there, representing some 18,000 properties. We have held the
delinquency at 2% over the past few years; it did recently dip to 1.9%. I
want to extend my compliments to you as well as my gratitude for helping us
to maintain such a tight rate on delinquency.
The other is Industry Interface. We had a goal of 75% this Fiscal Year;
right now, we’re at 60% of the properties with 24 units or more. For that I
want to extend my sheer gratitude.