Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, March 3, 1990 TAG: 9003032560
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A2 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: The Washington Post
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Medium
VA Deputy Secretary Anthony J. Principi told a House subcommittee this week that the manufactured, or mobile, home problems threaten the "financial solvency" of the department's loan-guarantee program for all housing and burden many veterans with heavy debt. The VA requires veterans to cover the department's losses on foreclosed homes, but actually collects only a small percentage of the amount.
With the Department of Housing and Urban Development's mobile-home losses added to VA's losses, the cost to the government could total more than $650 million. VA officials said the department has lost $166.6 million in the past five years and the HUD inspector general estimated HUD's total losses at more than $500 million.
"On balance," Principi said, the manufactured-home program is "not providing a viable benefit to veterans, despite our efforts over the years to improve the program."
The inspectors general for both departments have recommended that the mobile-home programs be killed. The HUD inspector general's most recent report, issued in October, noted that the inspector general has reported abuse and fraud in the mobile-home program since 1982.
But the VA encountered skepticism on Capitol Hill this week, when several members of Congress questioned whether the government has tried hard enough to clean up abuses of the mobile-home program or has regulated the industry adequately.
Mobile homes are the only kind of housing some veterans and lower-ranking military men and women can afford, according to several members of the House Veterans Affairs Committee's subcommittee on housing and memorial affairs.
Rep. Harley Staggers Jr., D-W.Va., the subcommittee chairman, told Principi the department should consider ways to improve the program before moving to abolish it.
by CNB