Section 3.6: Department of Housing and Urban Development
“In addition, HUD programs tend to perpetuate the notion of bureaucratically provided housing as a basic life need and, whether intentionally or not, fail to acknowledge that these public benefits too often have led to intergenerational poverty traps, have implicitly penalized family formation in traditional two-parent marriages, and have discouraged work and income growth, thereby limiting upward mobility.”
The argument that HUD (Department of Housing and Urban Development) programs have “implicitly penalized family formation in traditional two-parent marriages” likely refers to how certain public assistance programs, including housing benefits, use income thresholds to determine eligibility. In two-parent households, the combined income of both parents can push the family above the income limit for receiving assistance, effectively reducing or eliminating benefits.
He’s arguing that this discourages people from getting married, so they can stay on federal aid. I’d argue that if HUD programs are indeed leaving married couples with families behind, perhaps we need to revisit the way the programs are structured. I suspect Carson will argue for stripping unmarried people of benefits, rather than raising the income threshold for needy families.
Full contextual analysis of Section 3.6: Department of Housing and Urban Development here.
“HUD political leadership should immediately assign all delegated powers to politically appointed PDAS, DAS, and other office leadership positions; change any current career leadership positions into political and non-career appointment positions; and use Senior Executive Service (SES) transfers to install motivated and aligned leadership.”
Carson is mandating that HUD offices should be mostly headed by political appointees by the administration, rather than career professionals. This is another argument for staffing the Federal Government with loyalists to the regime.
Full contextual analysis of Section 3.6: Department of Housing and Urban Development here.
“It is hoped that a future Congress under conservative leadership will enact legislative reforms of HUD programs. With or without congressional action, however, it is vital that a conservative Administration immediately institute guardrails across HUD programs to remove the administrative state’s bureaucratic overreach of Article I authorities, thereby ensuring formal execution of Article II process and personnel reforms of the sort outlined below.”
This is an opinion that HUD has become too powerful or independent, making decisions that should be under the control of Congress or the president.
Full contextual analysis of Section 3.6: Department of Housing and Urban Development here.
“The Secretary should initiate a HUD task force consisting of politically appointed personnel to identify and reverse all actions taken by the Biden Administration to advance progressive ideology.”
Carson does not detail here what these policies are, so let’s investigate what he could possibly mean by “progressive ideology” as it pertains to affordable housing:
Biden’s administration revived a rule designed to combat housing discrimination, which Trump derided as ‘Abolishing the Suburbs’. The goal of the rule was to promote integration and reduce racial discrimination for affordable housing.
HUD has promoted environmentally friendly policies in affordable housing, such as energy-efficient building codes. I’m guessing this one isn’t what Carson means, since this plan was announced in September 2024, after this document was written. The new rules expanded options for safe, affordable, and energy-efficient manufactured homes.
Biden-Harris efforts to expand affordable housing, rental assistance, and homelessness initiatives might be viewed as progressive and targeted for rollback.
Biden’s administration has focused on addressing systemic inequities in housing access based on race, gender, and LGBTQ+ identity, which probably qualifies as “woke” according to the Heritage Foundation.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, the Biden administration supported eviction moratoriums and rental protections, which might also be perceived as a progressive stance in housing policy.
So we’ve come up with five concrete examples of Biden-era policies with regard to government housing assistance. Rolling these back would promote discrimination, racism, exacerbate climate change, and put people out on the street. Seems on-brand for Republicans.
Full contextual analysis of Section 3.6: Department of Housing and Urban Development here.
“Immediately end the Biden Administration’s Property Appraisal and Valuation Equity (PAVE) policies and reverse any Biden Administration actions that threaten to undermine the integrity of real estate appraisals.”
The PAVE task force5 is intended to tackle racial and ethnic biases in home valuations. This was after a report from the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation which found that appraisals for home purchases in majority-Black and majority-Latino neighborhoods were roughly twice as likely to result in a valuation below the actual contract price compared to appraisals in predominantly white neighborhoods. In short, if you were a black family, appraisers were telling you that your house was worth less than a comparable house in a comparable neighborhood that was owned by a white family.
In practice, what these changes looked like were things like drafting guidance empowering consumers to take action against appraisal bias, increasing transparency, requiring VA (Veterans’ Affairs) appraisers to undergo appraisal bias training, et al. [Source]
Carson is arguing here that guarding against racial discrimination “threatens” real estate appraisals, which is transparently ridiculous. I feel like I should point out that he, himself, is a Black person. It’s unclear what he thinks “reversing” these practices will do. Bring back that sweet racial discrimination?
Full contextual analysis of Section 3.6: Department of Housing and Urban Development here.
“Repeal climate change initiatives and spending in the department’s budget request.”
Let’s make manufactured homes less efficient and less safe!
HUD under the Biden Adminstration has promoted environmentally friendly policies in affordable housing, such as energy-efficient building codes. I’m guessing this one isn’t what Carson means, since this plan was announced in September 2024, after this document was written. The new rules expanded options for safe, affordable, and energy-efficient manufactured homes.
Full contextual analysis of Section 3.6: Department of Housing and Urban Development here.
“Repeal the Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing (AFFH) regulation reinstituted under the Biden Administration and any other uses of special-purpose credit authorities to further equity.”
This is in response to the Biden administration having revived a rule designed to combat housing discrimination, which Trump derided as ‘Abolishing the Suburbs’. The goal of the rule was to promote integration and reduce racial discrimination for affordable housing. Biden’s administration has also focused on addressing systemic inequities in housing access based on race, gender, and other factors.
Full contextual analysis of Section 3.6: Department of Housing and Urban Development here.
“Eliminate the new Housing Supply Fund.”
The New Housing Supply Fund is designed to increase the availability of affordable housing by providing funding to support the construction and development of new homes. There are a lot of philosophical reasons someone might argue for ending this – opposition to public housing in general, reducing government spending, et al. Carson may even believe that private home developers will step in and provide affordable housing if we reduce government intervention (I’ll leave it to you to decide how likely you believe that one is.)
The bottom line, however, is that this would cause a reduction in the affordable housing supply, particularly for low-income households and vulnerable populations. This would lead directly to increased homelessness, higher housing costs, and higher rent. If we make it more difficult for people to find affordable housing, we’re widening the gap between the rich and the poor even further.
Full contextual analysis of Section 3.6: Department of Housing and Urban Development here.
“The Office of the Secretary should recommence proposed regulation put forward under the Trump Administration that would prohibit noncitizens, including all mixed-status families, from living in all federally assisted housing.”
Mixed-status families would include American citizens who are married to an immigrant, and their children.
According to HUD’s OWN ANALYSIS, this proposed rule would result in the eviction of 25,000 immigrant families, including 55,000 children eligible for housing assistance. In fact, two-thirds of people in mixed-status families are already U.S. citizens; the majority of them children.
That’s a lot of homeless families and children, who would be kicked out of their homes for no reason other than racism and xenophobia.
Said HUD, after reviewing this proposal: “The withdrawal of this extremely harmful proposed rule is a win for fair housing – and human decency.”
Full contextual analysis of Section 3.6: Department of Housing and Urban Development here.
“Where admissible in regulatory action, HUD should implement reforms reducing the implicit anti-marriage bias in housing assistance programs, strengthen work and work-readiness requirements, implement maximum term limits for residents in PBRA and TBRA programs, and end Housing First policies so that the department prioritizes mental health and substance abuse issues before jumping to permanent interventions in homelessness.”
So, in a nutshell, bring back racial discrimination practices in affordable housing and housing evaluations, make it more difficult for people to access affordable housing, implement term limits for the amount of time people can live in affordable housing (which will cause homelessness amongst the disabled community – they don’t magically become “abled” after a term limit), and end Housing First policies, which will exacerbate homelessness and addiction. For more about how Housing First policies work, see the analysis below.
Full contextual analysis of Section 3.6: Department of Housing and Urban Development here.