Remembering John Weicher

Remembering John Weicher

Kurt Usowski, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Economic Affairs, Office of Policy Development and Research
Todd Richardson, General Deputy Assistant Secretary, Office of Policy Development and Research

On December 12, HUD and the Office of Policy Development and Research (PD&R) lost one of the pillars of the department: Dr. John Weicher. This post is not only a remembrance of John's important role in defining PD&R and securing its future but also a reminder of the critical importance of political appointees below the secretary level — difficult and critical positions with no job security. 

Saving PD&R

John played a vital role in revitalizing PD&R as a research organization, not once, but twice. 

• The first revitalization: John was the assistant secretary of PD&R from 1989 to 1993, a period when then-Secretary Jack Kemp sought to recreate HUD in the wake of several scandals. John decided to restore the public's faith in HUD by improving the monitoring and evaluation of its programs, which led him to create the Program Evaluation and Program Monitoring divisions within PD&R. This reorganization involved hiring a number of new employees, including both authors of this post as well as many other staff who have served in critical roles at HUD over the past 33 years.

• The second revitalization: Throughout the early 2000s, PD&R's budget had steadily declined. Questioning whether PD&R was still relevant, Congress tasked the National Research Council to evaluate PD&R's role in HUD. John chaired the committee that completed this evaluation in 2007 and 2008. The resulting report documented the importance of PD&R historically and mapped out a strategy to revitalize the organization. Raphael Bostic, the first assistant secretary for PD&R under President Obama, used the report to support a substantial increase in PD&R funding and responsibility.

The vital role of political appointees

John's role in PD&R began long before he was appointed as PD&R's assistant secretary and continued long afterward. He joined PD&R at its launch in 1973, and from 1975 to 1977, he served as its chief economist. In addition to his work at PD&R, he served as housing assistant secretary/FHA commissioner from 2001 to 2005. 

As a political appointee in the 1970s under Presidents Nixon and Ford, John learned the inner workings of PD&R and HUD, leading him to write what was then the quintessential summary of HUD's operation in 1980. At PD&R, John was central to creation of the American Housing Survey, which continues to provide vital data to the nation today.

One memorable event during John's tenure as assistant secretary of PD&R was the push to designate Enterprise Zones to encourage the revitalization of economically depressed urban and rural areas. Although Secretary Kemp had long favored the idea of Enterprise Zones (designated areas where business activities incurred little to no taxation), producing implementing legislation and building political support for the concept became critically important in the wake of the 1992 Los Angeles riots, and the job went to PD&R. To convince Congress to support the concept of Enterprise Zones, PD&R needed to show representatives and senators what parts of their districts would be eligible for the tax incentives, which required many maps. As geographic information systems (GIS) for personal computers were still in their infancy in the early 1990s, producing a quick set of computer-generated maps was out of the question. Instead, John gathered staff from throughout PD&R; handed them paper census tract maps, a set of highlighters, and printouts (produced by HUD's mainframe computer) containing the lists of the tracts on the various maps and their Enterprise Zone eligibility codes; and set PD&R staff to work at "coloring by numbers." Meanwhile, Kurt Usowski and Alan Fox, who had been dabbling in GIS, were put in a room with the most powerful personal computer HUD's information technology office could find to figure out how to generate Enterprise Zone maps. 

Although the tax bill containing the Enterprise Zone provisions ultimately did not pass, PD&R's efforts laid the groundwork for analyzing similar proposals that Congress did enact, such as Empowerment Zones and Enterprise Communities (1993), Renewal Communities (2000), and Opportunity Zones (2017) as well as the establishment of GIS as a key component of PD&R's research.

Seven years later, John served as Federal Housing Administration (FHA) commissioner under George W. Bush, and even though the FHA position was a significant undertaking, John kept PD&R close. This connection was most evident in the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act (RESPA) regulatory reform instituted during the George W. Bush administration. John gave the PD&R team, headed by then-chief economist Harold Bunce, a strong leadership role in developing the regulations and ensured funding for PD&R's foundational research involving the regulation on closing costs for FHA mortgages and the various consumer tests of the proposed and final disclosure forms. The regulatory concepts and organizational structure for completing the rule that John established carried beyond his tenure at FHA to the final rulemaking in 2008, and HUD's version of the RESPA rule remains largely in place after the Dodd-Frank Act transferred RESPA authority to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

A part of the HUD and PD&R family

John's passing also reminded us of a trivia contest that HUD used to host around this time of year. The contest featured three teams: the A team (HUD's staff attorneys); the B team (career staff); and the C team (political appointees). None of the other teams ever had a chance when John was on the C team. His breadth of trivia knowledge was overshadowed only by his incredible expertise on housing data, research, and policy. 

Always working

When John was not at HUD, he was chief economist for the U.S. Office of Management and Budget from 1987 to 1989, and he worked at several think tanks, including the Urban Institute, the American Enterprise Institute, and at the Hudson Institute. He continued to conduct important research for the Hudson Institute until his passing last week. His death was a huge loss for the PD&R family, and John will be missed dearly.