Last week, Secretary Donovan provided the key note address at the 7^th Annual conference of the  National Association for Latino Community Asset Builders (NALCAB) and highlighted the Obama Administration’s investments in Latino communities and organizations. These investments have helped create jobs, stabilize home prices in neighborhoods hard hit by the housing crisis and helped thousands of Latino families remain in their homes.

During his address, Secretary Donovan stated that the Latino community has been particularly hard hit by the housing crisis, but thanks to the commitment and work of organizations like NALCAB and Chicanos Por La Causa (CPLC), neighborhood stabilization efforts have been able to help Latino families in cities like Phoenix, Las Vegas, Chicago, San Antonio and Pittsburgh. In 2010, CPLC (a member of the NALCAB consortium) received $137 million in Neighborhood Stabilization Program (NSP) funding; which is the largest grant ever given to a Latino organization in the history of the federal government.

Secretary Donovan gives the keynote at the annual conference of the National Association for Latino Community Asset Builders.

Secretary Donovan also explained that NSP has granted close to $7 billion to local and state governments as well as non-profit organizations, and more than 16% of the beneficiaries of home acquisitions, construction, rehabilitation and homeowner counseling have been Latino families.  Additionally, President Obama’s commitment to the Latino community was demonstrated in the fact that 9% of all NSP funds had been invested in Congressional Hispanic Caucus districts despite only constituting 1% of all congressional districts.

“But we can do more” said Secretary Donovan, as he explained that the President’s American Jobs Act would have an even greater impact in the Latino community. He also highlighted that the American Jobs Act would impact 250,000 Latino-owned small businesses who would receive a tax reduction, and that it would impact 25 million Latino workers that would benefit from the payroll extension provision in the bill.

Project Rebuild would create 200,000 jobs and invest $15 billion in states and communities that continue to be affected by the housing crisis, many of them with large Latino populations.

Project Rebuild is fundamentally an investment not just in hard hit places but also for the families who live there – the millions of homeowners who have seen their property values decline through no fault of their own, just for being near a foreclosed property.