Alyssa Nassner

The former HUD secretary was a vocal advocate for addressing housing costs Julián Castro ended his campaign for president on Thursday, just weeks after failing to qualify for December?s Democratic debate.
Castro, who served as secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) in the Obama administration, was the most vocal of the candidates in advocating or addressing the affordable housing crisis with federal means.
His housing plan called for billions in additional funding in affordable housing programs, including a massive expansion of the Housing Choice Voucher program, which subsidizes rent for low-income families, to include all families making less than 50 percent of the area median income. He also called for a presidential commission to examine local zoning reform. With housing costs rising for Americans across all incomes, housing affordability was expected to be a national election issue for the first time in decades. And while most major candidates have released concrete housing plans, the issue has yet to be substantially addressed at debates, and it?s gotten overshadowed by discussions of health care and climate change on the campaign trail.
It?s reasonable to think Castro could have done more to bring attention to housing issues, and his housing plan didn?t offer much that wasn?t also in the plans of other candidates. Still, he was the candidate who was most likely to bring up housing at debates or on the trail.
With Cas...