HousingWireHousingWire
Deep cuts at the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) are likely to increase the cost of homes, upend housing markets and complicate mortgage transactions, current and former agency staffers told the Washington Post.
HUD’s workforce is expected to be cut in half — from about 8,300 employees to just over 4,000 — with huge cuts in field offices nationwide, according to an internal memo obtained by the newspaper. There are 65 field offices across 10 regions. Many of the projected cuts will be felt at the Federal Housing Administration, one of the largest mortgage insurers in the world and a critical agency for providing liquidity to the housing market.
Top HUD officials and staff have also developed plans to evict undocumented immigrants from public housing and impose time limits or work requirements for other residents, WaPo reported, citing sources.
Other cuts include billions of dollars for homeless initiatives, millions in funding for projects that improve energy efficiency, indoor air quality and climate resilience for certain HUD properties, and a contract related to inspections for affordable housing units.
- The Office of Community Planning and Development, which focuses on veteran housing, disaster recovery and community block grants, will be cut by 84% by late May, per an internal memo.
- The Office of Public and Indian Housing, which serves over 3.5 million households, will be cut by 50%.
- The Office of Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity will be cut by nearly 77%.
- Smaller field office in rural parts of the U.S. will be shuttered.
- Most oversight and accountability work of public housing authorities will have to be done remotely due to cuts.
The paper also reported that most of the directives have been issued not by newly minted HUD Secretary Scott Turner, a former NFL player, but by Scott Langmack, a DOGE senior adviser who works as the COO of real estate tech firm Kukun. He has expressed enthusiasm for integrating AI into HUD’s processes, staffers told the outlet.
DOGE claims they’ve already identified $1.9 billion in HUD money that was recovered ‘after being misplaced during the Biden administration due to a broken process,” adding that funds were “earmarked for the administration of financial services, but were no longer needed.”
Turner on Friday said the agency has identified over $260 million in savings.
After being confirmed, Turner said of HUD: “The path ahead of us presents an opportunity to restore HUD to its core mission of supporting strong and sustainable communities and quality, affordable homes — serving our nation’s most vulnerable. We must reduce burdensome regulations to make homeownership easier while unleashing prosperity that has been stifled in communities across the country for far too long.”
In his short time in HUD leadership, Turner has pledged to “quarterback” efforts to bring Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac out of conservatorship and announced the department would walk back its gender identity policy — mirroring two of the president’s priorities.
