Behind the polished walls of the Department of Housing and Urban Development, a flood of internal emails, memos, and text messages reveal a troubling picture: career staff say Trump appointees tried to quietly dismantle decades of work protecting Americans from housing discrimination.
One appointee dismissed past cases as “artificial, arbitrary and unnecessary.” Another supervisor who objected to lawyers being shuffled around was fired just six days later. And in a particularly stark warning, the agency’s enforcement director wrote that gag orders and intimidation were being used to choke off discrimination cases — a plea so urgent it was sent to a U.S. senator, now pushing for a federal investigation.
A Civil Rights Landmark Under Fire
These documents, reviewed by The New York Times, suggest a concerted effort during the Trump years to weaken enforcement of the Fair Housing Act, the 1968 law that outlawed discrimination in housing.
Half a dozen current and former HUD employees told reporters that political appointees made it nearly impossible to do their jobs. Lawyers who once investigated landlords, lenders, and real estate agents for discrimination were suddenly blocked from talking to clients without permission. Some were even told they could no longer cite landmark housing cases as precedent.
One top official went further, ordering that “archival documents contrary to administration policy” be removed and that so-called “tenuous theories of discrimination” would be abandoned.
“If you’re not enforcing the Fair Housing Act, then it’s just another dead law,” said longtime career lawyer Palmer Heenan, who’s been informed he will be reassigned next month with no explanation.
Massive Staff Cuts
HUD officials defended the moves as efficiency measures. But the cuts were anything but routine. Across federal agencies, the Trump-era efficiency drive reduced staffing by about 10 percent. Inside HUD’s Fair Housing Office, the cut was a staggering 65 percent.
At the start of the year, there were 31 employees handling fair housing enforcement. After the latest round of mandatory transfers, just 11 will remain. That includes only six lawyers, compared with 22 before Trump took office — even as they face around 2,000 new complaints each year.
Meanwhile, local nonprofits field an additional 32,000 housing discrimination inquiries annually. With the government’s top enforcement office hollowed out, many fear those cases will never be addressed.
“I never thought I’d be in this position,” said Paul Osadebe, another fair housing attorney. “We have people trying to destroy a baseline that families relied on.”
HUD Pushes Back
HUD spokeswoman Kasey Lovett rejected claims that the department is undermining the law. In a statement, she said it was “patently false” to suggest otherwise, arguing that the office continues to “uphold the law, protect the vulnerable, and ensure meaningful access to housing.”
She also accused the Biden administration of letting cases “languish” and noted that more than 4,100 cases have been handled since Trump took office, a pace she said was consistent with prior years. The statement, however, didn’t say how many cases were actually investigated or resulted in legal action.
A Growing Backlog — and Fewer Watchdogs
For the career lawyers still hanging on, the numbers are bleak. With desks empty and caseloads piling up, hundreds of complaints have stalled or been dropped altogether.
To them, the cuts aren’t just about budgets or efficiency. They see them as an attack on one of America’s most important civil rights protections.
As one lawyer put it: “The danger isn’t only in the cases we can’t bring today. It’s in the signal we’re sending — that discrimination in housing might just get a pass.”
Author Profile
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The writer is a real estate journalist specializing in all types of New York City properties, including luxury residences, commercial spaces, and homes.
He also writes humorous articles about real estate, investors, and realtors.
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