Timing is everything. And Barney Frank's time has come.
His expertise and pragmatic attitude about housing, rental and owned, have gained him the national spotlight. He's everywhere in the media, ranging from the cover story of THE ADVOCATE [January 12, 2009] to a full-length profile by Jeffrey Toobin in THE NEW YORKER [January 12, 2009].
And his style, which Toobin describes as "wise guy and wise man of the Democratic Party," reassures a distrustful nation in troubled times. He embodies the increasingly popular working-class persona and the braininess which the Obama Administration is also making the new zeitgeist.
Therefore, those of us concerned about low-income rentals - think the families leasing units with lead paint hazards - might embrace Frank as our Patron Saint. It would have been premature to have him as a defense witness in the lead paint public nuisance and personal injury trials until now. But now he would be the perfect voice for sensible approaches to preserving/increasing the stock of affordable housing and hammering landlords to maintain those properties as lead-safe.
In its coming lead-remediation project in Rhode Island, CLEARCorps, which won the $6.7 million contract with the state attorney general and Healthy Kids Collaborative, might invite Frank to check things out. His home office away from Washington D.C. is based right across the border in Massachusetts.
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