The Department of Housing and Urban Development is the Federal agency principally responsible for programs concerned with the Nation's housing needs, the development and preservation of the Nation's communities, and the provision of equal housing opportunity for every individual.

In carrying out its responsibilities, the Department administers a wide variety of programs, including: Federal Housing Administration mortgage insurance programs that help families become homeowners and facilitate the construction and rehabilitation of rental units; rental assistance programs for lower income families who otherwise could not afford decent housing; the Government National Mortgage Association mortgage-backed securities program that helps ensure an adequate supply of mortgage credit; programs to combat housing discrimination and to affirmatively further fair housing; programs that aid community and neighborhood development and preservation; and programs to help protect the homebuyer in the marketplace. The Department also takes steps to encourage a strong, private-sector housing industry that can produce affordable housing, and to stimulate private-sector initiatives, public/private-sector partnerships, and public entrepreneurship.

The Department of Housing and Urban
Development (HUD) was created to:

-administer the principal programs that provide assistance for housing and for the development of the Nation's communities;

-assist the President in achieving maximum coordination of the various Federal activities that have a major effect upon community preservation and development;

-encourage the solution of problems of housing and community development through States and localities;

encourage the maximum contributions that may be made by vigorous private homebuilding and mortgage lending industries, both primary and secondary, to housing, community development, and the national economy;

and

-provide for full and appropriate consideration, at the national level, of the needs and interests of the Nation's communities and of the people who live and work in them.

HUD was established by the
Department of Housing and Urban