David Berenbaum

Deputy Assistant Secretary for Housing Counseling
United States Department of Housing & Urban Development

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David Berenbaum serves as the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Housing Counseling at the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development. The Office of Housing Counseling’s mission is to ensure that families have the knowledge they need to obtain, sustain and retain their housing via HUD's network of over 1,700 housing counseling agencies and their Certified Housing Counselors. The Program’s far-reaching outcomes annually impact over one million consumers and support numerous departmental programs, including the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) single-family housing program. As a member of the Senior Executive Service, Mr. Barenbaum collaborates with HUD’s leadership, professional staff, and partners to provide the high impact services to ensure that every American has a place to call home and the ability to achieve their financial dreams. David brings more than 30 years of leadership and program experience to the Office of Housing Counseling and to the issues of fair, affordable & sustainable housing and related public and private sector housing counseling initiatives. He is nationally recognized as a trusted voice for consumers and as a champion for a vibrant marketplace that celebrates the importance of counseling, financial education, and open housing so that every neighborhood is a community of opportunity. David previously served as the chief executive officer of the Homeownership Preservation Foundation and has held executive positions with the National Community Reinvestment Coalition, the Equal Rights Center, the Fair Housing Council of Greater Washington, and Long Island Housing Services. He is a frequent presenter at conferences across the nation – where he speaks from the heart and educates stakeholders to the importance of empowering consumers to make responsible choices to improve their housing, rally their credit and savings, understand their rights and responsibilities, and to avoid and/or recover from eviction, foreclosure or life’s unanticipated hardships. Mr. Barenbaum has testified before Congress numerous times as a non-partisan subject matter expert, has served on many public and private sector advisory and social enterprise boards, has appeared as an expert on national news magazines and media shows, and has been regularly quoted by news sources across the country. His depth of knowledge on a panoply of community development issues ranging from housing finance to CRA position him well for leading the Office of Housing Counseling and enhancing HUD’s housing counseling programs.