State housing czar steps down

New York State housing czar Priscilla Almodovar resigned from her
post this afternoon, after less than three years in the position.
Almodovar, president and CEO of the Housing Finance Agency, has been
widely credited as one of the state government’s most effective
members, with the state’s inventory of affordable housing units more
than double its level when she took office. Industry experts say she
was particularly deft at redistributing funds from ineffective
programs into more efficacious ones. “Priscilla really took the
state’s bonding resources and used them in a way to produce affordable
housing in reasonably large quantities and in places where it wouldn’t
usually happen,” Benjamin Dulchin, executive director of the
Association for Neighborhood and Housing Development, said. “She took
some messed-up crony programs and thought them through and made them
really effective.” Almodovar plans to transition into the private
sector, according to a statement from her spokesperson.