Five Democratic leaders in the US Senate – including Minority Leader Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Ranking Member of the Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) – sent a letter to Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Secretary Scott Turner to halt staff cuts within his department, claiming it would “exacerbate the housing crisis” and limit HUD’s disaster response abilities.
“We are deeply alarmed and troubled by reports that you terminated hundreds of probationary employees on Friday and are planning to cut [HUD’s] workforce by 50% or nearly 4,300 staff,” wrote the Senators. “Initial reports suggest no program office would be spared, with staffing cuts ranging from 10% to 84%. Some of the most drastic reductions impact areas that support highly vulnerable people, including seniors, homeless veterans and families, and people with disabilities, and provide billions of dollars to cities and counties across the country. Without sufficient staff to run these programs, community and economic development projects, disaster recovery efforts, and housing development across the country will be delayed and could come to a grinding halt.”
The senators added that HUD’s staffing levels dropped by more than 20% between 2012 and 2019. The letter to Turner added, “As a result, at the start of your tenure as Secretary, HUD’s staffing capacity was near its 2012 levels with a dedicated workforce ready to advance HUD’s mission. So much of that hard-fought progress has been wiped away in less than three weeks, and between the deferred resignation program and termination of probationary employees, overall staffing levels will be cut by 13 percent at HUD.”
The letter also predicted that “President Trump’s reckless threats of blanket tariffs on friendly nations could drive up housing costs, deter new development, and slow rebuilding efforts in disaster-impacted communities. Freezing already obligated funds, cancelling necessary program contracts, and hastily gutting HUD’s workforce will inevitably lead to costly delays, and many housing projects will fall apart completely, only making our current housing crisis worse. We urge you to immediately stop any additional cuts to HUD’s workforce.”
Joining Schumer and Warren in the letter to Turner were Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA), Vice Chairwoman of the Senate Appropriations Committee; Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), Ranking Member of the Subcommittee on Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, and Related Agencies; and Sen. Tina Smith (D-MN), Ranking Member of the Subcommittee on Housing, Transportation, and Community Development.
Photo courtesy of Sen. Chuck Schumer’s Instagram page
HUD got caught misplacing millions of dollars that was found by musk in a totally different agency.DOGE needs to continue and expose all of the corruption in our government.
um… not exactly. they retracted find that we’re already obligated to project owners then claimed they “found money. ” y’all are so gullible!
They are deeply alarmed at the waste and graft being exposed
Schemer & Warren need too go
I doubt we’d miss half the staff at HUD. Given the turn times for them answering the phones and solving problems, things might improve if people are a bit more fearful of loosing their jobs. Such a wasteful Agency. It costs more money than it’s worth.
No they are deeply concerned about the American citizens who need housing and don’t live in mansions with gold toilets. I hope you aren’t a Realtor because if you can’t see how this will gut our industry you are blind or more likely drank the Trump kool-aid. Hey have you brought groceries or gas lately they were coming down on day 1 remember. Now they are higher than the month before. Housing inventory up housing sales down but hey getting rid of HUD is going to help so much. Why don’t you people start looking at the true facts instead of the Musk made up facts?
The HUD program has gone to dirt in the last few years due to contractors and greedy mortgage companies. They need to cut more staff because they don’t operate conservitively. Too many Chief, not enough Indians.
Deb, the only Kool-aid out there is blue.
HUD has never helped me sell a house. Democrats are terrified because all of their waste, bribes, theft and otherwise mismanagement of our tax dollars is being exposed for all to see. OPEN YOUR EYES!
Deb, I am a Realtor & have been for 29 years. It’s not the Trump kool-aid that has tanked our industry, it was bumbling biden & his crime family that thought it was a good idea to raise interest rates, made us where we are energy dependent on other nations that hate use, thus driving the prices of EVERYTHING up thru the roof to where people that rely on HUD couldn’t afford to buy!
The Liberals are losing their minds
Deb, notice that a lot of those who drank the kool-aid also can’t spell, if that’s any correlation. 😵💫
You are obviously not a realtor, or a good one!
Deb, Really? HUD is no different than the rest of the glutinous federal gvt. Seems the only kool-aid drinking is by you and the rest of those that thought the head of the biden crime family was “sharp as a tack” and running circles around his staff. bidenomics, wide open borders and his buddy the unelected fouchi ruined the residential industry. From not knowing was a supply chain is to dumping trillions of $$ into pet programs that did nothing to help the everyday American CITIZEN.
Oh, so now they are worried about disasters: what about Hawaii, LA, and NC ? They took the slow train on those locations. Certainly is baffling.
Democrats need to sit down and shut up while they are ALL investigated. The Democrat party is Crime Incorporated. DOGE is like the Nuremberg trials. We need EVERY Democrat investigated, prosecuted, convicted and sentenced. The are literally all criminals as are the RINOs. America has had enough. It’s like 1776 or 1865 again.
Deb. take a few deep breaths and relax. The long term benefits of saving trillions of taxpayer dollars could be shocking, even if there are some temporary discomforts to get there. Everyplace Musk looks in this current federal system there is massive waste, fraud, and many employees that dont even show up to work. Why would anyone expect HUD to be the lone exception or any different ?
The Democrat Senators arrogantly and falsely assume HUD builds houses and that housing can’t be built without them. In fact, it is the federal government’s excessive regulations and bureaucratic impediments that are the problem for housing. NEPA and related regulatory bottle-necks created under the guise of “environmental protection” enrich bureaucrats, activists, lawyers and politicians at the expense of the taxpayer while preventing cost-effective housing production.
The DOGE effort thus far (only 4 weeks) has confirmed the worst fears of most American taxpayers: the federal government wastes billions (or trillions) of our tax dollars each year through fraud, corruption and incompetence. Too many federal government programs are essentially bureaucrat make-work, money laundering and kick-back schemes enriching leftwing bureaucrats and politicians.
As Musk proved with Twitter/X, large organizations can run a lot more efficiently with much lower staffing levels and more competent execution of the primary mission. Politicians and government bureaucrats seem not to realize they work for the taxpayers, not the other way around, and their obligation is to be completely honest and spend taxpayer dollars more efficiently for the benefit of the American taxpayer, not the bureaucracy, politicians or their pals.
I’m a true independent I have voted Democrat and Republican. This has nothing to do with politics. I have also been in real estate 30 years- straight out of college.
In fact, Clinton and Al Gore did the same thing. They were the first to do the same similar idea as DOGE. I think they just didn’t have the technology or a super genius like Elon and his DOGE guys to figure out the antiquated systems that we currently have. They did do mass firings as well.
With that said, I think the government has really needed an overhaul in every department, for a very long time. It’s just shocking how much money is being spent on stupidities when we have the homeless, the poor people in North Carolina still living in tents and everybody’s burned down houses here in my hometown Los Angeles.
Our government in California is asking for money. Meanwhile they spent $9 billion for just healthcare to illegals.🤷♀️ But not for the residents who have tragically lost everything!
HUD is not exempt at all. They’re also “missing” a boat load of money, and they’re really disorganized.
Ya’ll might be missing the point of getting rid of agencies that allow lower income people to buy homes with less downpayment. Remember what it was like in 2020-2023 with all the investors & hedge funds buying up every house they could get for rentals. Individuals couldn’t outbid them and the prices skyrocketed. More people became tenants! We were headed for a rental society where only the rich owned a home to live in. The rest would be tenants. Has it ever occured to you that the reason for making it more difficult for poorer people to own a home allows for more rentals. The billionaires are licking their chops at the fact they can now decide who buys a home and who doesn’t. I don’t think you’ve seen anything yet as far as taking down the guardrails that help the consumer. The wealthy need to keep people down so they can get cheaper labor. Buying a house has been an income builder for people for generations. Use common sense and think about it for a while.
Linda, Don’t forget that HUD insures the HUD loans, they don’t provide the money for them, the lenders do. I have been a Realtor for over 35 years in a small rural area. Hardly use HUD anymore as our local lenders came up with better programs. I have never seen HUD do anything except sell repoed housing in the great recession for 50 cents on the dollar. If anyone has had experience working with HUD directly I would appreciate hearing from them. Maybe they do more than I realize.
Candace , It would be that I to worked in Real Estate for over 20 years and when the recession came I went to work for a lender in their foreclosure department and my husband and I have worked as inspectors for HUD directly and independent contractors for HUD in plumbing and heating .HUD has not done anything for the poor period. Only allowed them to purchase homes with 125% loans that in reality they had no way to pay. The typical individual that was purchasing via HUD situations were set up to fail. It was a quota they had to fill nothing more. And yes for a good long time during the recession I also worked with investors. Absolutely there were bad players on all sides. The main problem with poorer people is that they expect to be treated differently than anyone else with hand outs in a lot of cases. I came from a poor family and worked my way up to be able to purchase a home of my own by saving my money and working and letting NIKE sit on the shelf at the department store. Not expecting someone to give me what I needed or wanted. Now a days the folks don’t want to work they just want to have what they want. The HUD agency has been in a ruin for many years with too many people filling positions that they have no idea what is going on and no real training at all. And some of the rest have just found a gravy train that tells them to not worry about their job no matter how bad they are at it. Sorry but this is a true statement from someone that has worked on the inside out. I loved Real Estate and had to retire because I was going deaf. But general public needs to wake up to the waste and incompetence that is going on in the GOV agencies. Just fix it and move on.
They need to make sure they get all their payouts beforehand