Housing and Urban Development (HUD) secretary Scott Turner sat down at Fox News Digital to discuss some of the agency's biggest victories in the first 100 days of the Trump administration, sharing some of the top priorities of the next 100 HUD.
Scott said some of these victories include withdrawing Biden-Obama-era regulations to promote innovation and creativity in the housing market. Other actions include reforms focused on ensuring that American citizens are key beneficiaries of HUD resources, ensuring that HUD resources are accessed in a fair and secure manner. Aiming for the future, Turner said implementing work requirements for people in HUD-funded housing programs will be a priority.
“We're very focused, we're very detailed and very careful about what we're doing here,” Turner said. “Progress and success don't just happen. You have to be very intentional about it. You have to be very focused on it. You said that one of the things we did on the first day we did when we came here is to restore the mission-oriented focus of HUD's partnership.”
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Secretary Scott Turner said the HUD was extremely cautious about the reforms that took place in the first 100 days of the Trump administration. (Getty Images/Fox News)
Restoring that “mission-oriented focus” was to demolish “burdening regulations,” such as positively promoted fair housing regulations established under the Obama administration and revived by the Biden administration.
“We've removed this rule to restore flexibility and power to our regions because every city, every community is unique,” Turner said. Under the now respected rules, Washington officials said they have the power to choose “winners and losers” in their communities.
Turner also highlighted a new partnership between HUD and the Department of Homeland Security, which aims to prevent non-citizens from depriving American citizens of much-needed HUD resources.
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“We ensure that Americans live in HUD-funded housing,” Turner said. “And with this partnership, understanding people living in homes funded by HUD and FHA insurance is a key data collection focus, a mortgage backed by FHA, supported by US taxpayers.
DHS secretary Kristi Noem and HUD secretary Scott Turner are beginning efforts to end the “exploitation of housing programs” by undocumented immigrants. (Getty Images)
Turner also promoted one of his first actions as a HUD secretary. This retracted the Obama-era Equal Access Rules and required HUD-funded programs and shelters to determine eligibility based on a person's self-identified gender. “We wanted to defeat this rule to protect women and ensure that when people enter HUD-funded facilities they would enter after sex at birth,” Turner said of the reforms.
Turner said that looking into the future, efforts aimed at helping public aid become more self-sufficient through HUD-funded housing job requirements will be a priority for agents over the next 100 days.
“Social safety nets were not intended to be hammocks or resting places. Social safety nets were intended to be trampolines. If you do, it's a tool to project people into your life of independence and life expectancy, so if you do, it's about focusing on moving on through these next 100 days,” Turner said. “Our mind here at HUD is not about increasing the number of subsidies people, but about reducing the number of subsidies people and helping people live a self-sustainable life that changes the trajectory of people's lives.”
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Scott Turner visited the Seminoles in Florida and held listening sessions with tribal leaders to understand their unique housing challenges. (Scott Turner, Director of Housing and Urban Development)
“We don't want to scale up the government,” Turner added. “We want to reduce the size of our government.”
Turner also said the agency will focus on increasing public-private partnerships to improve housing affordability and the homelessness epidemic, noting that local entities in the area that are doing real work to influence change are crucial for HUD to complete the mission.
When asked about the pushbacks that led to his numerous policy changes during the Trump administration's first 100 days, the secretary said that part of being a strong “servant leader” is making tough decisions that no one might agree with.
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“But I think they are a healthy decision in our country,” Turner said. “At the end of the day, our job is not only to be more stewards than taxpayer dollars, but to be more stewards than the lives of Americans involved in entering HUD-funded facilities.”
