DOGE’s Cuts to HUD Will Only Make the Housing Crisis Worse

A stylized image of a fired federal worker, Claire—a bespectacled woman in a wheelchair—against a red and blue gradient background.

Claire Bergstresser was a federal worker in HUD’s Office of Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity until last month, when she was fired as part of the DOGE purge of probationary employees.Mother Jones illustration; Photo courtesy of the Office of Rep. Ayanna Pressley

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Until last month, Claire Bergstresser worked to enforce fair housing laws in the Boston branch of the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Office of Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity.

As an equal opportunity specialist, Bergstresser investigated allegations of discrimination—something she had experienced herself as a wheelchair user who struggled to get reasonable accommodation in a previous apartment outside of Boston. In her role at HUD, Bergstresser reviewed reports from people who said they were being discriminated against in housing appraisal and rental processes because of their race, gender, sexuality, disability, or family status, among other factors. Bergstresser was passionate about the work. “I really believe in the mission [of HUD],” she said.

But on Valentine’s Day, Bergstresser’s 19-month tenure as a federal employee came to an end when her supervisor told her and two colleagues they had been fired as part of Elon Musk’s purge of probationary workers across the federal government. While most federal workers’ probationary periods are one year, Bergstresser was on a two-year, renewable fellowship.

These dismissals are a harbinger of what’s to come at HUD, which is now being led by newly-confirmed secretary Scott Turner, a former NFL player, Texas state legislator, housing development executive, and pastor who worked in the White House during President Donald Trump’s first term. Back then, he was in charge of overseeing so-called “opportunity zones,” a program rolled out in 2017 to give tax breaks for investors who put money into poorer neighborhoods. The results of this effort were described as “middling” by the New York Times. 

Reports from NPR and the Associated Press suggest that Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) will lay off half of the approximately 9,600 employees of the housing agency in the coming months. Workers in three HUD offices are anticipated to bear the brunt of the layoffs: Fair Housing, where Bergstresser worked (which is unsurprising, given the war Trump has launched on DEI across the federal government); the Office of Community Planning and Development, which distributes funds to local communities to tackle homelessness, affordable housing, and disaster relief; and the Office of Policy Development and Research, which provides data on issues such as affordable housing and disaster aid that other HUD programs rely on to function.

Meanwhile, Turner has touted what he claims is a “DOGE task force” at HUD, which he says has already produced $260 million “in savings,” including by cutting $4 million in DEI-related contracts. Last month, more than two dozen Senate Democrats sent Turner a letter asking him to explain what, exactly, was eliminated as part of the alleged $260 million cuts. He does not appear to have publicly responded to their request.

The attack on HUD comes during a national housing affordability crisis and record homelessness. There’s a shortage of more than 7 million affordable rental homes across the country for extremely low-income people, according to the National Low-Income Housing Coalition (NLIHC). In 2023, the Pew Research Center reports, nearly a third of American households were facing what is referred to as being cost-burdened—a metric established by HUD that refers to households spending more than 30 percent of their income on housing costs. HUD data also showed there was record homelessness in the US in 2024, as I wrote in December, with projections of it worsening even before the news of the planned HUD cuts. The decision last June by the Supreme Court to essentially greenlight the criminalization of unhoused people in its City of Grants Pass v. Johnson decision is likely to present even greater challenges.

If the HUD cuts take effect, “people would not be on the ground doing the work of talking to people and connecting with organizations,” said Kim Johnson, public policy manager at the NLIHC. “It would make everything that people are experiencing now—in relation to the cost of housing and rising homelessness—worse.”

The HUD offices expected to be most targeted by DOGE firings directly tackle these issues. The Office of Community Planning and Development (CPD), for example, provides “core operations and funding for these really critical resources that cities, counties, states, and nonprofits use to address homelessness and housing instability in their communities,” such as homeless shelters and affordable housing, according to Ann Oliva, CEO of the National Alliance to End Homelessness and a former CPD official. The AP reports that more than 80 percent of that office’s staff are at risk of being cut, according to two leaked documents the news outlet obtained. Those proposed firings could “have a catastrophic effect on homelessness nationwide,” Deborah Thrope, deputy director of the National Housing Law Project (NHLP), told me.

CPD also provides block grants to state and local governments affected by hurricanes, floods, and wildfires. Some of this support, known as RUSH funds, are meant to provide emergency shelter and rapid re-housing for people and families experiencing, or at risk of, homelessness in the wake of a natural disaster. The funds were created with $56 million in 2022, in the aftermath of Florida’s deadly Hurricane Ian, according to a 2023 report from the NLIHC and the NHLP. Last year, the funds helped support disaster recovery in the Carolinas following Hurricane Helene. “HUD plays a huge role in disaster relief,” Thrope said, “and oftentimes can be sort of the first tranche of assistance that families are eligible for.” 

The targeted offices also play critical roles in supporting survivors of domestic violence, who can be at risk of or pushed into homelessness as a result of abuse. The Fair Housing Office is charged with enforcing the housing provisions of the Violence Against Women Act, which protects survivors’ rights to confidentiality and emergency transfers to escape abusers and prevents them from being discriminated against or evicted due to their status as a survivor.

The thought of the HUD workers who provide these services being fired, Bergstresser said, “terrifies me.”

“HUD is not the only one in our ecosystem that does the work, but I like to say we’re the ground floor of the house,” she added. “Without it, in a very short amount of time, everyone in our community will start to feel it.” 

What does Trump have to say about all this? Nothing, so far. Spokespeople for the White House and HUD did not respond to questions from Mother Jones, and the president did not devote a single word in his Tuesday night speech to the joint session of Congress to the housing shortage or affordability crisis. Bergstresser, who attended as a guest of Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.), was not “surprised, but of course, I’m disappointed.” HUD Secretary Turner’s confirmation had already raised alarm for housing advocates worried about his comments endorsing work requirements for federal housing assistance and advocating for more private equity involvement in the housing market. ProPublica reported that as a Texas legislator, Turner voted against legislation expanding affordable housing and support for unhoused people. But for now, he appears to be focusing his attention elsewhere. He reportedly invited Sean Feucht, a Christian nationalist, on a tour of the LA wildfire devastation to provide “Divine perspective” on how to rebuild. 

On Wednesday, Bloomberg reported that HUD plans to close dozens of field offices across the country—potentially in violation of federal law, which requires the agency to operate at least one field office in each state to process mortgage insurance applications. Thrope said this would also have a significant impact on the work of people like Bergstresser, who worked in HUD’s Boston field office: “They’re the ones reviewing complaints in their region and making sure that people’s fair housing rights are realized.” 

Resistance to DOGE’s potential decimation of HUD is ramping up as details continue to leak out. Monday night, federal workers and lawmakers held a rally outside the HUD headquarters in DC to protest the planned firings. Hundreds of organizations from across the country have also signed a letter to leaders of Congress, which the NLIHC plans to send to lawmakers by next week, urging them to oppose further DOGE firings at HUD. “Rather than improving efficiency,” the letter says, “such drastic staffing cuts at HUD will cause significant, harmful, and costly delays and will worsen America’s affordable housing and homelessness crisis, as well as its significant disaster recovery needs.” 

The status of Bergstresser’s former job remains unclear after a federal judge last week ruled that the firings of probationary workers were probably illegal. This prompted the Trump administration earlier this week to issue revised guidance to agencies this week claiming that, in fact, it was not ordering them to fire probationary employees. 

When we spoke on Wednesday morning, Bergstresser said the next steps were unclear, and she had not yet received an offer to return to her job. But if this happened, she said, “I’d take it.”

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