SAVE HUD

FACTS & FICTION

Attaching truth to HUD reality

About this page

This page was created for two reasons – to document various happenings within HUD from the perspective of HUD employees……. and to respond to offered explanations, with both facts and sarcasm alike.

Project 2025

Project 2025 is a product of the Heritage Foundation, not Donald Trump, who denied any knowledge of Project 2025 during his campaign in 2024.  This is quite true – Trump has never been allowed in the circles responsible for Project 2025, a fact he has found quite upsetting. Nonetheless, directives from Project 2025 are being carried out, as the Trump administration has carefully chosen to appoint only those who will follow directions without question. This is relevant to HUD as the Department’s Project 2025 portion was authored by the first Trump administration’s appointee, Dr. Ben Carson. The next step- finding the person to implement this vision as their own, which would oddly align exactly with Project 2025 and Trump administration priorities.

The following directives from Project 2025 are tracked by https://www.project2025.observer 

• Repeal the Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing (AFFH), which requires HUD to actively address historical patterns of segregation.
• End Housing First Policies 
• Ban mixed-status families from living in all federally assisted housing. 
• End Property Appraisal and Valuation Equity (PAVE) programs, which are a set of guidelines for producing home appraisals that are free of racial, ethnic, or any other form of bias. 
• Eliminate the Housing Supply Fund 
• Impose time limits for residents in tenant-based and project-based assistance programs. 

Somehow, despite claiming no knowledge of Project 2025, the actions taken from the administration follow the exact playbook as written, and the administration has found the perfect agents to implement this agenda – appointees willing to pledge blind loyalty.

Allegiance

Many political appointees lack experience with the Department they are selected to run. Traditionally, these appointees are balanced by non-political career staff- staff that must compete and qualify for their positions (more below).

What has become apparent of the Trump administration’s selections are not simply the ideological alignment appointees traditionally reflect, but their unquestioning loyalty to Trump despite their own preferences or judgements.

The Chosen One

Scott Turner is perhaps best known for his career in the NFL which began in 1995 after obtaining a degree from Illinois- Champagne in speech communications. After a failed campaign for a California congressional seat (coming in 8^th out of 17 candidates), he relocated to Texas to obtain a seat in the Texas House of Representatives by running in a newly created district. Turner then attempted to challenge the speaker of the house, resulting in a defeat of 127 votes to 9. In 2019, Donald Trump appointed Turner to lead the White House Opportunity and Revitalization Council.  

Opportunity Zones

What are Opportunity Zones? Search HUD for any research supporting opportunity zones, including the report issued from Turner’s Council, as none contain methods to determine its success. The closest effort to research including touring the country to ask people in low income census tracts if more investment would help, the answer to which everyone knows beforehand, and making recommendations, one of which was for another department to develop metrics. Opportunity zones are another catchy-named program designed to covertly benefit those already profiting, such as Turner and his investments made working at JPI, the Nation’s leading designer, builder, and developer of multifamily homes.

Opportunity Zones provide tax breaks to developers to invest in low-income census tracts, a seemingly good idea…..

Opportunity Zones

In fact, Turner repeatedly makes statements such as, “Opportunity Zones helped lift more than 1 million people out of poverty and spurred more than $84 billion of investments in forgotten communities.” Proving this would require tracking people over time and collecting data on their incomes, which isn’t being done, and couldn’t in the short time the program has existed.

An entire book has been written by David Wessel documenting OZ truths, entitled, “Only the Rich Can Play.” One finds realizations such as that among the 8, 764 Opportunity Zones across the country, 84 percent of the Opportunity Zones got no money at all, and half the money went to the best-off 1 percent of zones.

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion

Almost immediately, offices were instructed to list any activities, contracts, grants, etc. related to diversity, equity, inclusion, and other issues like climate change or energy efficiency. Billion dollar energy efficiency programs were halted immediately -impacting every person and organization that depends on funding. Does this approach align with the best interests of the people if it results in cost-savings? It should not, as proper review and reduction would result in similar savings and a hint of “woke” ideals like compassion or decency. Secretary Turner ironically declared DEI “dead at HUD” on February 20, 2025.

Return to Office

In his testimony before Congress, Turner stated. “need to bring the HUD staff back to the office so that they are empowered to serve the American people.”

This means nothing at all, as the the “empowered” does not provide a single specific action, nor does “serving the American people.” That is because HUD does millions of different things, by different people, in different places, in different situations. This is how Turner justified doing what he was told to do, prompting a response from employees…

Examples of Brilliance

The day employees returned to the office, some were terminated- including the staff responsible for information boards on screens all throughout the building. One decided post a farewell image, but Turner and DOGE did not worry because they had learned how to work the information screens before terminating the employees, right?

Nope! New appointees sent staff to run around frantically and unplug every screen, of which there are hundreds, as employees chuckled at new leadership throughout the hallways.

DOGE @ HUD

Similar to events in other agencies, DOGE brought confusion, panic, as they demanded access to sensitive data and systems. Never mind the unprecedented access to market and household trends, or countless sensitive information on citizens, or the security protocols to avoid leaking information. Like others, HUD employees began documenting 5 things they accomplished each week.

The HUD budget shows roughly $1.4b for 8,300 FTEs. Assuming 260 work days per year and 8 hours per work day, if each employee took 5 minutes to complete Musk’s five things tasks, the cost to HUD is ~$56k.

Reduction in Force

A lie must constantly defend itself from new examples of the truth, and such is the case with the reduction of the HUD workforce.

The public was told this was performance-based, but evidence such as the image here disproves this- the end goals, not any methods, were passed onto agencies. No matter the reasoning, the fate of many employees was decided in simple charts almost as nonsensical as Trump’s menu board of tariffs.

The Security Stunt

As documents like RIF charts appeared, it became clear new HUD leadership was flying by the seat of their pants. No better example of this exists than the one-day security…. experiment?

HUD leadership decided to email employees telling them new security measures would start the following Monday, with 4 entry points reduced to 1-2, and metal detectors… a good idea when you are firing people. On Monday, long lines queued as it became clear extra resources weren’t allocated for the checks, resulting in leadership abandoning ship within hours, and the experiment to never occur again. Brilliant planning became the norm..

HUD TVs

In fact, in an act of passive aggression, or admittance they have no idea how to work the boards, since The Real King display, HUD leadership has looped the executive order signing video clip from the Trump inauguration day over, and over, and over, and over, from the day they re-plugged all the screens they rushed around to unplug, to THIS VERY CURRENT DAY. The message boards previously displayed HUD event calendars, local weather and traffic info, commute times, all helpful information, but never again! It has been a true reflection of making HUD great and empowering employees!

Union Dues

Unlike the email alerting employees of an upcoming disastrous display of planning regarding the one-day security event, employees hoping to be good standing members of the union when terminated found themselves to be in noncompliance when Trump used “national security” exemptions to halt automatic payments. No one was told, not Unions, employees, or even the agencies themselves. Similar to communities suffering under grant funding cuts, this was discovered when reduced checks arrived to Unions.

Software Tracking

Like in dystopian novels, software tracking applications mysterious appeared on employee computers, causing a lag at 3pm when (presumably) reports and/or data is transferred to a central repository for some use, such as was with the “5 things” email data which is now being tossed aside (at expense to the taxpayer). Later employees receive emails telling them not to purchase mouse-moving devices to trick the monitoring software. Like the 5 things email, you will not find any use of this data available (although you paid for it).

The Portrait

In another example of loyalty without question, HUD employees arrived one day to fine the main auditorium packed with similarly dressed men in suits with security. The Republican donor cohort had arrived to celebrate the Project 2025 author, of which employees were notified 2 hours after the event start. This notification seemingly occurred only because of the 8 working elevators in the building, Turner and staff needed to reserve 4 of them for up and down trips from the 10th floor. None of this may sound odd to you, but remember- we do not have portraits or dedication ceremonies for other secretaries….