USA TODAY - Housing Secretary resigns under pressure

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WASHINGTON
From staff and wire reports

Housing and Urban Development Secretary Alphonso Jackson announced Monday he was resigning after seven years on the job.

Jackson, 62, is under criminal investigation and has been fending off allegations of cronyism and favoritism involving HUD contractors for the past two years.

ON DEADLINE: More on Jackson's resignation

He also was under intense pressure from Democrats to resign.

He did not mention the probe in his statement Monday to the media.

The FBI has been examining the ties between Jackson and a friend who was paid $392,000 by Jackson's department as a construction manager in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina.

"I am eternally grateful for the opportunity that you reposed the confidence in me to serve our country in this capacity and for the special friendship we share," Jackson said, thanking President Bush for the "privilege" of serving his country. "We have helped families keep their homes, we have transformed public housing, we have reduced chronic homelessness" and preserved affordable housing, he said.

Bush, in a statement Monday, said "I have known Alphonso Jackson for many years, and I have known him to be a strong leader and a good man. I have accepted his resignation with regret."

Jackson said he needs time to attend to personal and family matters.

He did not take questions or elaborate on the family reasons he cited for the decision.

Jackson resigns at a time when nation's housing industry is in a crisis so serious that it has imperiled the nation's credit markets and led to a major economic slowdown.

His resignation takes effect on April 18.

Jackson has a friendship with President Bush that dates to the late 1980s, when they lived in the same Dallas neighborhood.

He was the first black leader of the housing authority in Dallas and president of American Electric Power-TEXAS in Austin.

U.S. Senator Patty Murray, D-Washington, and chairman of the Transportation, Housing and Urban Development Appropriations Subcommittee that oversees the HUD's budget, said in a statement she called on Jackson to resign 10 days ago "because it was clear that the ethical allegations against him meant that the Bush Administration's ineffective housing policies were being burdened by an even more ineffective HUD Secretary."

She said Bush should nominate a Housing Secretary with experience and credibility."Hopefully with new leadership at HUD, we can negotiate a bipartisan plan with the Bush administration to spare the maximum number of families the devastating consequences of losing their home," she said.

Contributing: Associated Press

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