Tag: Housing and Urban Development

Internal report cites HUD for lead poisoning in East Chicago, Ind., children. More could be at risk.

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The housing agency’s inspector general flags missed opportunities to alert residents, jeopardizing their health

The Department of Housing and Urban Development has for years neglected to enforce its own environmental regulations, resulting in lead poisoning of children in at least one public housing development and potentially jeopardizing residents’ health in thousands of other federally subsidized apartments near contaminated sites, according to an inspector general report obtained by The Washington Post.

The agency’s watchdog reviewed HUD’s efforts to identify and mitigate health risks to residents of public housing near toxic waste dumps after the East Chicago, Ind., apartment complex, where tenants had been living with lead contamination for more than four decades, was deemed uninhabitable in 2016.

The West Calumet Housing Complex was declared a Superfund site in 2009 and demolished in 2019, its 1,100 mostly Black and Hispanic residents relocated. Continue reading.

HUD Secretary Ben Carson makes dismissive comments about transgender people, angering agency staff

Washington Post logoHousing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson expressed concern about “big, hairy men” trying to infiltrate women’s homeless shelters during an internal meeting, according to three people present who interpreted the remarks as an attack on transgender women.

While visiting HUD’s San Francisco office this week, Carson also lamented that society no longer seemed to know the difference between men and women, two of the agency staffers said.

Carson’s remarks visibly shocked and upset many of the roughly 50 HUD staffers who attended Tuesday’s meeting, and prompted at least one woman to walk out in protest, the staffers said.

View the complete September 19 article by Tracy Jan and Jeff Stein on The Washington Post website here.

How Ben Carson is rolling back fair-housing enforcement

HUD scales back investigations

In the two years since taking over the Department of Housing and Urban Development, Secretary Ben Carson has defanged his own agency, pulling back on investigations into housing discrimination and downsizing his fair-housing staff and budget. Tracy Jan has kept tabs on Carson’s tenure and says the HUD secretary’s changes run counter to what the department was initially created to do.

Listen to Tracy Jan’s December 24 podcast on The Washington Post website here.

Carson Grilled About Lead Paint and Mold in Public Housing

The following article by Jacob Holzman was posted on the Roll Call website June 28, 2018:

How to pay prompts heated exchange

Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson Credit: Tom Williams, CQ Roll Call file photo

Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson was peppered with questions by lawmakers over the department’s handling of lead paint and mold in public housing, leading to a heated exchange over how to pay for fixing the issue.

At a House Financial Services Committee oversight hearing Wednesday, Rep. Nydia M. Velazquez, D-N.Y., quizzed Carson on the Trump administration’s fiscal 2019 funding request, which called for zeroing out the department’s public housing capital fund, a source used for repairs to public housing.

She raised the case of the New York City Housing Authority, which on June 11 entered into a $1.2 billion consent decree with the Justice Department over numerous living conditions issues, including for failing to meet federal lead safety requirements and to properly conduct inspections of housing facilities. Continue reading “Carson Grilled About Lead Paint and Mold in Public Housing”

Under Ben Carson, HUD Scales Back Fair Housing Enforcement

The following article by Glenn Thrush was posted on the New York Times website March 28, 2018:

Ben Carson, the secretary of housing and urban development, on a housing tour last year in Columbus, Ohio. This month, he struck the words “inclusive” and “free from discrimination” from his department’s mission statement. Credit Ty Wright for The New York Times

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration is attempting to scale back federal efforts to enforce fair housing laws, freezing enforcement actions against local governments and businesses, including Facebook, while sidelining officials who have aggressively pursued civil rights cases.

The policy shift, detailed in interviews with 20 current and former Department of Housing and Urban Development officials and in internal agency emails, is meant to roll back the Obama administration’s attempts to reverse decades of racial, ethnic and income segregation in federally subsidized housing and development projects. The move coincides with the decision this month by Ben Carson, the secretary of housing and urban development, to strike the words “inclusive” and “free from discrimination” from HUD’s mission statement. Continue reading “Under Ben Carson, HUD Scales Back Fair Housing Enforcement”

Ben Carson Defends Buying $31,000 Dining Set to Congress: ‘I Left It to My Wife’

The following article by Glenn Thrush was posted on the New York Times website March 20, 2018:

Ben Carson, the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, testified before a House Appropriations subcommittee hearing on Tuesday. Credit Erin Schaff for The New York Times

WASHINGTON — Ben Carson, the secretary of housing and urban development, told a House committee on Tuesday that he had “dismissed” himself from the decision to buy a $31,000 dining room set for his office last year, leaving the details to his wife and staff.

Mr. Carson offered a rambling, at times contradictory, explanation of the purchase of the table, chairs and hutch, a transaction that turned into a public relations disaster that led President Trump to consider replacing him, according to White House aides.

The hearing, before the House Appropriations subcommittee that determines the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s budget, was supposed to center on the administration’s proposed budget cuts to the agency. Instead it was dominated by questions about Mr. Carson’s judgment, the conduct of his wife, Candy Carson, and son Ben Carson Jr., and Mr. Carson’s initial denial that he was aware of the expenditure, a position he has modified. Continue reading “Ben Carson Defends Buying $31,000 Dining Set to Congress: ‘I Left It to My Wife’”

Ben Carson’s HUD abandons fighting housing discrimination in new mission statement

The following article by Zack Ford was posted on the ThinkProgress website March 7, 2018:

Ben Carson wants HUD to do less to improve the housing experience across the country.

HUD Secretary Dr. Ben Carson with Pres. Trump in the White House. Credit: Mark Wilson/Getty Images

The Department of Housing and Urban Development has a new mission statement, thanks to Secretary Ben Carson — and gone is language about creating communities that are inclusive and free from discrimination or working to strengthen the housing market to protect consumers.

According to a memo sent out Monday to HUD’s political staff and obtained by the Huffington Post, the new proposed mission instead focuses on Carson’s priority of “self-sufficiency”: Continue reading “Ben Carson’s HUD abandons fighting housing discrimination in new mission statement”

Trump Administration Postpones an Obama Fair-Housing Rule

The following article by Emily Badger and John Eligon was posted on the New York Times website January 4, 2018:

The secretary of Housing and Urban Development, Ben Carson, left foreground, leading other cabinet members and President Trump in a prayer last month. Credit Jonathan Ernst/Reuters

Undermining another Obama-era initiative, the Trump administration plans to delay enforcement of a federal housing rule that requires communities to address patterns of racial residential segregation.

The Department of Housing and Urban Development, in a notice to be published Friday in the Federal Register, says it will suspend until 2020 the requirement that communities analyze their housing segregation and submit plans to reverse it, as a condition of receiving billions of federal dollars in block grants and housing aid. The notice tells cities already at work on the detailed plans required by the rule that they no longer need to submit them, and the department says it will stop reviewing plans that have already been filed.

The move does not repeal the 2015 rule, a product of years of pressure from civil rights groups and review by the Obama administration. HUD argues that it is trying to respond to cities that have struggled with the rule’s requirements, delaying it for several years while the agency further invests in the tools communities use to assess their housing patterns. Continue reading “Trump Administration Postpones an Obama Fair-Housing Rule”