As layoffs ramped up across the federal government this week, Housing Secretary Scott Turner said he had launched his own "DOGE" task force with HUD employees to review every dollar the Department of Housing and Urban Development spends.
"We are no longer in a business-as-usual posture and the DOGE task force will play a critical role in helping to identify and eliminate waste, fraud and abuse and ultimately better serve the American people," Turner said in a statement. On Friday afternoon, the Elon Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency posted on X, the social media platform Musk owns, that "$1.9 billion of HUD money was just recovered after being misplaced during the Biden administration due to a broken process."
Musk has said that a string of such actions are saving taxpayers money, but there's been few details and little transparency around them.
Agency officials looked visibly distraught at the size of the cuts
The Trump administration also aims to lay off half of HUD's staff, according to an agency worker with direct knowledge of the plans and a union leader who has spoken with other HUD employees.
Agency officials said some areas could face less-severe cuts, specifically citing the Federal Housing Administration, which insures mortgages and generates much of its own funding through premiums. But other areas could face even higher targets – around 75% of staff reduction, according to the union leader.
Agency officials looked visibly distraught and described these targets as "drastic" and "shocking," according to one HUD staffer. They spoke to NPR on condition they not be named for fear of retribution in their job.
So far, HUD has not publicly announced any plan for broader cuts and the timing for any reductions is not clear. The agency did not respond to a request for comment for this story.
Antonio Gaines, president of HUD Council 222 of the American Federation of Government Employees, learned about these targets from three officials with direct knowledge of them, who also declined to be named for fear of retribution.
Gaines said the union reached out to the Trump administration multiple times to negotiate the downsizing, as its contract requires, but had been rebuffed. He said the union is considering whether to file grievances.
Gaines said one HUD office that could lose most of its employees manages programs on homelessness, affordable housing and disaster recovery. Another enforces civil rights laws, and a third provides research on housing issues and HUD programs.
Gaines said his understanding was that any programs not required by congressional statute are especially vulnerable. He noted that the chapter about HUD in Project 2025, written by Trump's first HUD secretary, Ben Carson, calls for transferring some of the agency's functions to other federal agencies, states or cities.
A program for affordable-housing properties may be on the chopping block
But one program created and funded by Congress appears to have been targeted for outright cancellation: the Green and Resilient Retrofit Program. Another HUD staffer with direct knowledge of that project said they've been informed that the Trump administration is terminating it.
The program was created by the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act. It has awarded more than $1 billion to private companies to help them upgrade apartment buildings for HUD-subsidized tenants, making them more energy efficient.
"This [program] is an extremely efficient and effective use of government funds," said Julia Gordon, an assistant secretary for housing under the Biden administration. "This helps property owners reinvest in their properties. And not only does it make them less expensive to operate, but it makes them more resilient to natural disasters."
She also expressed confusion about why the administration would target the program in the midst of an affordable housing crisis.
The companies who've been awarded the upgrade money have not spent most of it yet, because real estate deals take years. The HUD staffer told of the cancellation said that means thousands of construction and other jobs the program generates might now be lost.
Gaines, with the AFGE union, said the Trump administration targets also include the closure of half of HUD's field offices nationwide. He calls this "arbitrary and capricious," and worries about the ripple effects across the country, both for the people HUD serves and the staffers doing that work.
"Federal employees are homeowners, too," he said, and many may now face their own risk of foreclosure.
"Record high housing costs are putting the squeeze on families in every part of this country," said former HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan, who now heads Enterprise Community Partners. He said arbitrary cuts to staff and funding "will only serve to destabilize our housing system and drive up costs for both renters and owners."
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