Bobby Rayburn, the new president of the National Association of Home Builders, hopes to do for the term "workforce housing" what his predecessors have done for the phrase "Smart Growth."

NAHB, which held its annual convention in Las Vegas late last month, coined the "Smart Growth" tag line several years ago. Although the term means different things to different people, it has at least become the basis for a national debate on land use issues.

Now, Rayburn, a builder from Jackson, Miss., hopes to further define the issue of affordable housing.

Generally, the definition of affordable housing has been limited to teachers, police and firemen -- public employees commonly referred to as "local heroes" -- who cannot afford to live where they work.

But the new NAHB president wants to expand the term to include the butcher, baker and proverbial candlestick maker who have been forced to "live 60, 70 or 80 miles away" from where they, too, perform their everyday tasks.

There are millions of families who "are not part of the community where they work because they cannot reside there," said Rayburn, who has built more than 3,000 housing units during his 30-year career. "These are people who work in the service and retail businesses we depend on every day."

Although America is the best housed country in the world with nearly seven out of ten households owning the roofs over their heads, he said the generations-old notion that by getting a good education, landing a good job and working hard is the way to get ahead is not working for too many families.

Many people are still working two and even three jobs to meet their monthly housing expenses, the Mississippi builder pointed out. For others, the gap between what they can afford and what they can buy is "widening at an alarming rate."

The effort to expand the debate to include workforce housing is part of an ambitious agenda Rayburn calls "Housing America's Working Families" and includes tapping the clout of NAHB's 220,000 members.

Among other things, the association plans to provide regular updates and status reports on such key issues as the economic recovery, the upcoming presidential and congressional elections, maintaining a healthy secondary mortgage market and backing a strong national policy agenda for housing.

Then, the huge constituency -- several million strong when you count all the folks who work on houses in one way or another -- can exercise its political power on the local electorate.

At the national level, NAHB's senior officers plan to attend both the Democrat and Republican national conventions and hope to put housing on the radar screens of not just both parties but also those of the eventual presidential candidates, Rayburn said.

The new NAHB leader also wants to help the Department of Housing and Urban Development "be a better housing department." And toward that end, he plans to create a task force to look at the agency and determine how it might better serve its constituency.

He said the panel would look not only at what HUD does but what it used to do, as well as the housing programs operated by other federal agencies. "It might be better if all the programs were under one umbrella," he said.

Rayburn plans to appoint fellow Mississippi builder Fred Griffin, the vice chair of the association's Housing Finance Committee, to head the task force.

Griffin, who hails from Madison, shares his leader's notion of workforce housing.

"When I think of workforce housing, I think of the bagger at our local grocery store," he said.

"He works 30 hours a week at the store and 30 hours a week for the local government. When he asked his wife to marry him, he promised her she wouldn't have to work a day in her life, and she hasn't. Yet, he hasn't asked anybody for a handout. I'd like to see this guy have a house."

Published: February 4, 2004

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When Lew Sichelman first started writing about housing in 1969, he was the youngest real estate writer in the country. Now, 37 years later, he's one of the oldest -- and most decorated. He has been rated the top housing columnist in the country by the National Association of Realtors as well as by his peers in the National Association of Real Estate Editors. Indeed, NAREE has recognized his work on numerous occasions. One year - due to his advancing age, he can't recall which one - he earned top honors in the annual NAREE Journalism Contest in three out of the four major writing categories. It was the first time one writer has won so many NAREE awards in a single year. Known for his ability to make even the most difficult topics understandable, Sichelman also has been honored by the National Association of Home Builders and the Mortgage Bankers Association. He began providing in-depth coverage of and consumer-oriented information about housing and housing finance at the Washington Daily News, where he was real estate editor. He held that same position for nine more years at the Washington Star, which purchased the News in 1972. The Star, a so-called "writer's newspaper" which also had the misfortune of being an evening paper, was put out of its misery in 1981, and Sichelman, who had begun self-syndicating his column in 1978, decided to become a full-time columnist. Today, his column, "The Housing Scene," is distributed by United Media to newspapers throughout the country. He also is on the staff of National Mortgage News, an independent newspaper which is considered the bible of the mortgage business. And he writes for numerous other publications, including MarketWatch.com, where he answers readers questions once a week, Sports Illustrated (don't ask), RealtyTimes.com, BigBuilder and others. Sichelman is married, the father of five and grandfather of eleven.