Marcia Fudge announces retirement as secretary of Housing and Urban Development 

MARCIA FUDGE by& Ashleigh Fields, AFRO Assistant Editor Former Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Secretary Marcia Fudge announced her departure from the White House cabinet on March 11 in an email. The Secretary leaves behind an array of inclusive policies and progressive legislation in her wake. While serving in the position for over four years, Fudge developed a healthy understanding of the needs of average Americans.& She has been adamant about securing fair housing standards in individual evaluations. & “If you have paid your rent on time for the past 12 months we believe you are creditworthy,” Fudge shared on a press call to announce housing accomplishments last week. “We have changed the way we calculate student loan debt or evaluate it in our underwriting process.”& She later cited that over 730,000 Black and Latino families were brought in for a loan or refinanced through the Federal Housing Finance Agency, which resulted in over two million people in their homes. Although Fudge admitted the Department was seeing “modest gains” as it relates to Black home ownership specifically. “We’ve built and repaired more than 500 units of affordable housing but it’s still not enough as we are 3 million units short,”...