Housing nominee Mel Watt helped create the subprime crisis
...A press release from Watt’s campaign office in October 2002 said that the loans to the welfare recipients would require “as little as $1,000 of the down payment to come from their own funds” and that the city of Charlotte would help borrowers obtain a “down payment subsidy” to cover the rest of the 3% down payment....

...Watt’s deregulation of Fannie and Freddie came after the government-sponsored enterprises spent billions in his congressional district. “Freddie Mac has purchased $9.5 billion in mortgages made to an estimated 82,000 Charlotte-area residents,” Watt’s staff announced in 2002.

Many of those risky loans ultimately led to the housing bubble and financial crisis. Charlotte was among the hardest-hit areas of the country. The 6.09 percent foreclosure rate for the North Carolina city was more than double the national average of 2.85 percent, according to the Charlotte Observer. CNN.com listed Charlotte number five of the hardest hit foreclosure hotspots in America in 2011....