# Department of Housing and Urban Development The **Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD)** is the federal government's principal housing agency, created in 1965 as part of Lyndon Johnson's [[Great Society]]. It administers public housing and the Section 8 voucher program (together the main federal support for low-income renters), insures mortgages through the Federal Housing Administration, runs Ginnie Mae's secondary-mortgage guarantees, channels community-development block grants to cities, and enforces the [[Fair Housing Act]] against housing discrimination. It is the chief federal lever on housing affordability and on the country's long history of residential segregation. For the KB, HUD matters as a site of the fight over **fair housing and the federal role in residential segregation** — the "Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing" rule has been a recurring flashpoint, repealed and restored across administrations — and as a perennial candidate for budget-cutting and downsizing. ## Leadership (2025–) **[[Scott Turner]]** — a former NFL player, Texas state legislator, and head of the first Trump administration's Opportunity Zones council — was confirmed Secretary of HUD on February 5, 2025, by a 55–44 vote. Turner has emphasized deregulation, work requirements for housing assistance, and an "opportunity"-framed approach over fair-housing enforcement. ## Major components Tracked as plain references until individual pages are built: - **Federal Housing Administration (FHA)** — mortgage insurance for lower-down-payment buyers. - **Office of Public and Indian Housing** — public housing and the Section 8 / Housing Choice Voucher program. - **Office of Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity (FHEO)** — Fair Housing Act enforcement; the AFFH battleground. - **Office of Community Planning and Development** — CDBG and homelessness-assistance grants. - **Ginnie Mae** — guarantees mortgage-backed securities backed by FHA/VA loans. ## The capture lens The [[Project 2025]] agenda pushes HUD toward weaker fair-housing enforcement, work requirements on assistance, time limits on subsidized housing, and a shrunken federal footprint. The patterns the KB tracks: - **Fair-housing rollback** — repealing or hollowing the Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing rule and disparate-impact enforcement. - **Work requirements and time limits** — conditioning and capping housing aid. - **Budget shrinkage** — cuts to vouchers, public housing, and community-development grants. - **Consolidation talk** — recurring proposals to downsize or merge the department. ## See Also - [[Project 2025]] - [[Cabinet Departments Hub]] - [[Federal Agencies]]