President Trump, a slumlord at heart, is quietly halting enforcement of the Fair Housing Act, a massive piece of civil rights legislation that made it illegal to deny housing to someone based on their race, gender, religion, disability, or familial status.
Whistleblowers at the Housing and Urban Development’s fair housing office told The New York Times that Trump officials have made it harder for them to investigate and prosecute landlords and real estate agents who don’t abide by the guidelines of the Fair Housing Act. One HUD memo from a Trump appointee told employees to abandon “tenuous theories of discrimination” and that any research or content that was “contrary to administration policy” would be cut out. Lawyers have also reportedly been blocked from communicating with certain clients without prior approval from the Trump administration.
“I never thought I would be in this position,” said fair housing lawyer Paul Osadebe, who was informed he’d soon be reassigned. “We have people who are trying to destroy a baseline that people relied on.”
HUD has only made four charges of discrimination since Trump took office. It usually has 35 per year. The fair housing office has been slashed heavily by DOGE cuts, with only six lawyers remaining and another staff reduction coming on October 5. The disdain for HUD’s fair housing arm makes it clear that the Trump administration sees it as some DEI excess and not an incredibly important watchdog for Americans everywhere.
“With one email, the entire process was shut down,” former fair housing enforcement director Jacy Gaige told the Times. “It essentially stopped the settlement process, which is time sensitive because complainants and respondents come to an agreement about what they want to do to resolve a case. And often that is driven by specific deadlines that are occurring in people’s lives.”
Meanwhile, the few lawyers still left at HUD are drawing in urgent requests for support, especially from women who file complaints under the Violence Against Women Act.
“These are life and death requests,” said Osadebe. “These women are legitimately in mortal danger, and often without the government stepping in, nothing will be done.… This is a deliberate plan, and it’s about shutting down fair housing.”
Trump’s HUD spokeswoman, Kasey Lovett, has dismissed this narrative as “patently false” and blamed the stagnation in the fair housing office on the “deeply inefficient case system” of the Biden administration.
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