Why Trump’s HUD Pick Is a Red Flag for Housing Advocates

Photo Credit: Metro Centric – Queensbridge Houses, CC BY 2.0 By Jennifer Porter Gore This article was originally published on& Word In Black. Over the weekend, President-elect Trump announced his nomination of Scott Turner to lead the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. Turner, a former NFL player and Texas legislator, would be the first — and so far, only — Black appointee in Trump’s second cabinet. But for housing advocates, his nomination and Trump’s anti-fair-housing agenda raise plenty of red flags. Indeed, while most housing advocates know little about Turner, they’re amply aware of and concerned about what the second Trump Administration has signaled will be its housing policy. Scott Turner (Photo Credit: The White House/Public Domain) Trump’s Housing Policies Weren’t Great During Trump’s first term, HUD — under Dr. Ben Carson — focused on policies like the Rental Assistance Demonstration (RAD) program, designed to repair aging public housing. Since much of the nation’s public housing is more than 50 years old, many of the buildings need billions of dollars in repairs and updates. Sounds great, right? Not so fast — those policies often came with a catch: HUD also supported closing public housing properties deemed “too expensive...