Scott Turner, a former pro football player and official during the first Trump administration, will face senators on Thursday as he makes his case to lead the Department of Housing and Urban Development.
Affordable housing advocates and housing policy experts have expressed mixed thoughts on President-elect Donald J. Trump’s decision to nominate Mr. Turner. Little is known about the specifics of Mr. Turner’s policy views, although he has been scrutinized in recent weeks over his previous comments about government assistance and his voting record as a state representative in Texas.
Mr. Turner, a cornerback who played in the N.F.L. for nine seasons, served as a Republican in the Texas House of Representatives from 2013 to 2017. During that time, Mr. Turner supported a bill that would allow landlords to refuse apartments to applicants because they received federal housing assistance, and opposed another that would fund public-private partnerships to support the homeless, a ProPublica report found.
After making a long-shot bid for speaker of the Texas House, Mr. Turner did not seek re-election. He later worked on a federal initiative to drive investment to economically distressed areas as executive director of the White House Opportunity and Revitalization Council during Mr. Trump’s first term.
If confirmed, Mr. Turner would oversee an agency that provides vouchers and other rental assistance to millions of low-income households, distributes billions to help the homeless and enforces fair housing laws.
He is expected to face questions over how he would advance efforts to boost housing supply and support renters as Americans have grown frustrated over steep housing costs and the country continues to struggle with a shortage of homes.
Mr. Turner has previously called Ben Carson, the housing secretary in Mr. Trump’s first term, a “great mentor.”
“I’m delighted with the nomination,” Mr. Carson said in an interview. “He worked very well with us when I was the HUD secretary and was the major driver of the opportunity zones.”
Mr. Carson said he expected Mr. Turner to prioritize efforts that aim to make housing more affordable, and that he understood the importance of reducing regulations that could be barriers to building housing.
Most recently, Mr. Turner has been the chief visionary officer for JPI, a company that develops multifamily properties in Texas and Southern California, and the chairman of the Center for Education Opportunity at the America First Policy Institute, a think tank stocked heavily with former Trump officials. Mr. Turner is also an associate pastor at Prestonwood Baptist Church in Plano, Texas.
His voting record in Texas and comments about government assistance have stirred up some controversy. Mr. Turner has previously called some welfare programs “dangerous.”
Renee M. Willis, the interim president and chief executive of the National Low Income Housing Coalition, said that she wanted to learn more about Mr. Turner’s plans for the agency but that she was concerned about his voting record.
“He has consistently opposed meaningful housing policies,” Ms. Willis said.
Heather Way, the director of the Housing Policy Clinic at the University of Texas School of Law, said she thought Mr. Turner’s voting record was “troubling,” and she criticized the opportunity zone program for providing significant tax breaks to wealthy investors.
“His record in the Texas House indicates not only a lack of commitment but at times even a hostility to addressing the housing needs of low-income Texans,” she said.
Other housing experts said Mr. Turner’s experience at a company that builds multifamily housing could mean that he has a strong understanding of the challenges that developers face.
“Having that lens could be potentially useful as they consider ways to adjust or reform federal regulations,” said David Garcia, the policy director at Up for Growth, a Washington-based research group focused on the housing shortage.
David M. Dworkin, the president of the National Housing Conference, said he thought that Mr. Turner was qualified for the job and that it was important to give him “the benefit of the doubt.”
“There are some who have been picking apart votes and statements he made in the Texas legislature,” Mr. Dworkin said. “But I think navigating HUD in the context of an affordable housing crisis and comments made in one of the most conservative legislatures in the country are really two different things.”
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