WASHINGTON (AP) – The Bush administration's top housing official is resigning at a time when the housing industry is embroiled in crisis.
Housing and Urban Development Secretary Alphonso Jackson announced Monday he is quitting. His resignation will take effect on April 18.

Jackson is under criminal investigation and has been fending off allegations of cronyism and favoritism involving HUD contractors for the past two years. He did not mention the probe in his statement Monday to the media.

Instead, Jackson said he needs time to attend to personal and family matters.

The nation's housing industry is in a crisis so serious that it has imperiled the nation's credit markets and led to a major economic slowdown.

Jackson was the first black leader of the housing authority in Dallas and president of American Electric Power-TEXAS in Austin. He has a friendship with President Bush that dates to the late 1980s, when they lived in the same Dallas neighborhood.