NPR’s All Things Considered reported today that Alphonso Jackson, the Secretary of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), has resigned under allegations of political cronyism. The allegations are related to housing development deals he made in Philadelphia. The NPR report discusses HUD’s inadequate response to the Katrina disaster given the razing of condemned Section 8 and other public housing, as well as the general decline in federal funding for housing during the Bush administration. Jackson was a Bush appointee who came from Texas.