Trump’s next HUD secretary would have a lot to do to address the history of racist housing policy – and Trump’s own comments and history suggest that’s unlikely

  Donald Trump has picked former football player Scott Turner to lead the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. While not much is known about Turner’s positions as he awaits confirmation by the Senate, Trump’s selection draws attention to the incoming administration’s housing policies.

  Those policies, evident in both the first Trump presidency and in comments made during the campaign, suggest an abiding faith in the private sector and local government. And they are likely to include deregulation and tax breaks for investment in distressed areas.

  They also show a disdain for federal fair housing programs. These programs, Trump said on the campaign trail in 2020, are “bringing who knows into your suburbs, so your communities will be unsafe and your housing values will go down.”

Ben Carson wants HUD to stop fighting housing segregation

  Today, a child born to a low-income family and raised in the Tremé neighborhood of New Orleans will have beaten the odds if they live past age 67. They can also expect to make just $20,000 a year by the time they reach their thirties.

  Just a 20-minute drive away, in the Uptown/Carrollton neighborhoods near Tulane and Loyola Universities, that same child could expect to live 20 years longer and take home roughly $53,000 more in annual salary.

What Ben Carson doesn’t get about poverty

  “The prescription for the cure rests with the accurate diagnosis of the disease.”

  Apply Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s words to Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Secretary Ben Carson’s latest plan and you’ll see just how brainless public housing policy could become.

  Carson has unveiled a plan that would, among other things, triple the minimum rent for the poorest public housing residents—from $50 to $150. The change would affect an estimated 1.7 million people, 1 million of whom are children.