By Bennett Roth and Karoun Demirjian, CQ Staff

The Senate late Thursday confirmed former New York housing official Shaun Donovan as Housing and Urban Development secretary.

Donovan, 44, was confirmed by voice vote. He was New York City’s housing commissioner, a position he had held since 2004. Members of both parties praised his qualifications to lead HUD at a Jan. 13 confirmation hearing before the Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee.

At the hearing, Donovan promised a more aggressive and far-reaching effort to ease the mortgage crisis and promote affordable housing.

Donovan served as deputy assistant secretary for multifamily housing at HUD during the Clinton administration, when he was responsible for programs involving privately owned apartment complexes. He has also worked at Prudential Mortgage Capital Co. as managing director of its Federal Housing Administration lending and affordable housing investments.

Donovan took a leave of absence from the Bloomberg administration to advise Obama during his campaign.

Democratic senators said they were looking to Donovan to reinvigorate an agency they said had not been aggressive enough in dealing with the housing crisis.

“Surprisingly — and unfortunately, in my opinion — HUD has not played a central role in addressing the housing crisis,” said banking panel Chairman Christopher J. Dodd , D-Conn. “We cannot address our economic crisis until we address the underlying housing crisis. And to do that, we need an active, aggressive and well-run HUD with leadership that is competent in its mission and unafraid to act.”

When he announced his selection of Donovan, President Obama said his pick for HUD secretary would be essential to his plan to “dramatically increase the number of families who can stay in their homes.”

“With experience that stretches from the public sector to the private sector to academia, Shaun will bring to this important post fresh thinking, unencumbered by old ideology and outdated ideas,” Obama said.

Among the new initiatives Donovan has expressed his desire to pursue are policies to promote low-income housing construction projects that incorporate the principles of sustainability and energy efficiency; coordinating low-income housing development with improvements in transportation; and expanding the availability of FHA-backed low-income rental housing, as another option for contending with the foreclosure crisis.

“HUD can give families the choice to live closer to where they work and, in the process, cut transportation costs,” Donovan said at his confirmation hearing. “HUD can help low-income families gain greater access to security and opportunity by expanding fair housing efforts.”