On Wednesday, we caught up with Nic Retsinas, one of the Bipartisan Policy Center's housing commissioners, between briefings with members of Congress and the Treasury department. He tells us a MacArthur Foundation-funded report calls for the federal government to balance its support for renting and owning, provide housing vouchers for all making less than 30% of median income, and replace Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac with a smaller public guarantor.

Nic, a former FHA commissioner and a current Harvard Business School real estate prof, says his commission's report makes the case that multifamily is doing well now but has required appropriations in the past. Long-term, he says, the GSEs shouldn't bear the sector's full credit risk. Instead, the private sector should take the first risk position, and the government should back it up by absorbing catastrophic risk. The commission will "stay in business" for another year to revise its policy based on its conversations with public officials. Former Senate majority leader George Mitchell , former senator Kit Bond, former senator and HUD secretary Mel Martinez, and former HUD secretary Henry Cisneros (above) are among Nic's fellow commissioners.