Fannie and Freddie Helped Spawn the Mortgage Crisis, and So Did Affordable Housing Mandates

" The two mortgage giants bought up risky sub-prime mortgages partly in order to satisfy government affordable-housing mandates, as even the liberal Village Voice found in its investigative reporting. Even Fannie Mae's 2006 10-K form with the SEC noted the role of HUD's affordable-housing mandates as a factor in its purchase of mortgages it would once have avoided as too risky"