newYou can listen to Fox's news articles!
The Trump administration has announced plans to sell the headquarters of the Housing and Urban Development Agency (HUD), a brutal architectural monster. Secretary Scott Turner acknowledges that HUD headquarters is “known as the most gli-established building in DC.”
The Trump administration is also about to end the refund program with half of the HUD staff that have plagued America since the launch of Lyndon Johnson's great society.
Andrew Cuomo, former New York Governor and Bill Clinton's last HUD secretary, admitted in 1998 that HUD was “a child of a failed government poster.” In 1976, Detroit City Council president (and future U.S. Senator) Carl Levin denounced the agency as “Hurricane HUD” for destroying Motor City on a mortgage that was recklessly granted at stratospheric default rates.
On March 3, 2025, the Housing and Urban Development Agency (HUD) Headquarters, Washington, DC. (Daniel Hoyer/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
Vice President Algore condemned the public housing project that was supplied to HUD in 1996. In 2006, the voice of the left-wing village labelled HUD the worst landlord in America.
HUD sells the headquarters building half occupied by DC
Gross negligence has always been the standard operating procedure for HUD. In 2011, the Washington Post gathered hundreds of satellite images to prove that HUD's biggest home building program was “a dysfunctional system that delivers billions of dollars to local housing agencies with rules, parents, or even reliable ways to track projects.”
HUD claimed it was unaware that billions of dollars in the grant had been misused or looted, and ignored a barrage of complaints from individuals whose neighborhoods had been destroyed. HUD “leaved a trail of failed development in every corner of the country. The fields where apartments are promised are ignored by the sky,” the Post said.
Bill Clinton's last HUD secretary, Andrew Cuomo, admitted in 1998 that HUD was “a child of a failed government poster.” (AP Photo/Richard Drew, File)
In the 1990s, I spent days researching Boondogles at HUD headquarters. The HUD was overstocked with the most depressed employees they could meet outside of group therapy sessions in the city's prison. After writing a work for the Wall Street Journal with the headline “Clinton's Wrecking Ball for Suburbans,” Secretary Henry Cisneros denounced me for “unfortunate stereotypes of auxiliary residents.”
However, it is not as unfortunate as the subsequent wave of violent crimes that have been fed to HUD across the country. At least 30 people died in Section 8 homes in Chicago in the first half of 2016.
Trump has stopped Biden's plan to force the community to do Day
In Houston, a study by Texas A&M University found that male Section 8 recipients are twice as likely to commit violent crimes as people with similar backgrounds or no income. HUD's funding study found that the relocation of Section 8 “tripled the arrest rate for property crimes” among juveniles who moved to new areas.
Vice President Algore condemned the public housing project that was supplied to HUD in 1996. (Andrew Haller/Bloomberg)
Russell Vert, Trump's Director of Management and Budget, describing Section 8 because it “causing crime, reducing property value, and bringing dependence and subsidized irresponsibility.” The Trump administration plans to propose a sharp cut in the rental subsidies for next year.
When Congress created the HUD in 1965, it was supposed to bring social justice to American cities. However, Biden's Federal Housing and Finance Director Sandra Thompson testified in 2022 that the racial homeownership gap was “higher than when the 1968 Fair Housing Act was passed.”
The Biden administration has sought to “fix” that issue with a new mission to punish mortgage borrowers with a good credit rating by forcing them to subsidize borrowers with a volatile record of paying bills. But “Deadbeats doesn't leave behind” is a poor saying for mortgage policies.
For more information about Fox News, click here
Scott Turner appears in front of the Senate before a confirmation slip to serve as HUD secretary. (Getty Images)
Secretary Turner declares that he is ready to abandon HUD headquarters, and that the agency's focus is on “creating workplaces that reflect the values of efficiency, accountability and purpose.” The 12-storey building needs $5 billion for “deferred maintenance and modernization,” even though it was half empty a year before Trump's mass shootings. The costs of maintenance and modernization far outweigh the original costs of inflation-adjusted dollar buildings.
HUD's unstable headquarters could be far more valuable for iconic gestures than real estate payments.
Donald Trump should take the page from the most dramatic housing interventions of the past 60 years. In 1954, St. Louis opened one of the nation's largest public housing projects, featuring 33 high-rise apartments. However, the Pruitt-Igoe project was soon hopelessly damaged by crime and vandalism. Film footage from 1972 of the entire project being destroyed should be something that every high school citizen class in the country needs to be seen.
On March 3, 2025, protesters outside the Housing and Urban Development Headquarters in Washington, DC (Daniel Hoyer/Bloomberg by Getty Images).
Click here to get the Fox News app
The much-published demolition of HUD headquarters will provide a more valuable lesson for Americans than any selling price the messy building has acquired. For 60 years, HUD reaped a massive council budget, regardless of the chaos it so. Razing HUD reminds all federal agencies that failure has consequences.
And seeing HUD's headquarters fall will satisfy anyone who wants to drain the swamps of DC and everyone whose home values and neighbours have been devastated by HUD.
For more information about Jim Bovard, click here
