Text of Letter (PDF)

Congresswoman Maxine Waters (D-CA), Ranking Member of the House Financial Services Committee, and U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), Ranking Member of the Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee, urged Congressman French Hill (R-AR), Chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, and U.S. Senator Tim Scott (R-SC), Chairman of the Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee, to call up Scott Turner, Secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), to testify before their respective committees. The lawmakers’ request comes in light of HUD whistleblowers’ troubling allegations indicating a systematic failure by the Trump Administration to enforce fair housing and civil rights laws at HUD’s General Counsel Office of Fair Housing (OFH) and the Office of Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity (FHEO).

“According to current and former employees within OFH and FHEO, HUD leadership is systemically undermining the Department’s fair housing, civil rights, and VAWA implementation and enforcement efforts, putting the Department on ‘an unalterable course towards violating its statutory and regulatory obligations’ to the American public,” the lawmakers wrote.

The lawmakers laid out key allegations Turner must answer for:

1. Significant staff reductions at OFH and de-prioritization of fair housing work: “HUD leadership allegedly informed existing OFH staff that ‘fair housing was ‘not a priority’ of the administration, that less civil rights work would be performed under this administration, and that there was an ‘optics problem’ with [OFH] being as large as it was.’ Despite warnings that pulling staff away from civil rights and fair housing efforts could hinder HUD’s ability to comply with its statutorily mandated functions, HUD leadership nevertheless reportedly took steps towards reducing the size of OFH by 70 percent.”
   
2. HUD’s potential inability to enforce VAWA: “The Department is reportedly moving to reassign 75 percent of the VAWA team at OFH, including its supervisors—a move that, if it goes through, will leave the Department unable to support survivors of domestic violence, sexual assault, and human trafficking.”
   
3. Gag orders for HUD attorneys and dropping of housing discrimination cases: “According to current and former HUD staff, HUD leadership has prevented OFH attorneys from communicating with external parties both within and outside of HUD ‘without express approval from political leadership,’ inhibiting the agency’s ability to implement civil rights and fair housing laws. In addition, the agency has dropped ‘major investigations and cases concerning alleged housing discrimination and segregation, including some where the agency already found civil rights violations.’”
   

“Our respective Committees must take these allegations seriously and call on Secretary Turner to testify before Congress. Failure to act leaves millions of Americans at risk of rampant discrimination in housing and mortgage lending,” the lawmakers concluded.

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