How the trump Administration is Politicizing and Refusing to Enforce America’s Housing Protections
S. E. Anderson
The Fight for Fair Housing: How the trump Administration is Politicizing and Refusing to Enforce America’s Housing Protections
by Paul Osadebe and Palmer Heenan
Our names are Paul Osadebe and Palmer Heenan. As whistleblowers in the Office of Fair Housing (OFH) within the Office of General Counsel at the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), we and two other whistleblowers bore witness to an ongoing and concerted effort by the trump Administration to cease enforcement of civil rights laws, including the Fair Housing Act (FHA), which HUD is required by law to enforce. We were fired for alerting Congress to the unlawful conduct that was occurring at HUD. We are writing this in our personal capacities, not on behalf of the agency or any other entity.
The Fair Housing Amendments Act of 1988 provided HUD with enforcement authority for the Fair Housing Act.1 Since then, HUD has investigated hundreds of thousands of complaints of alleged discrimination and taken enforcement action to ensure victims of unlawful discrimination can access the protections guaranteed by the Fair Housing Act.2 The Office of Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity (FHEO), among other things, investigates claims of housing discrimination brought by the public.3 OFH then charges and litigates discrimination complaints where there is “reasonable cause” to believe that discrimination occurred.4 In effect, investigators in FHEO act as the “police” who investigate violations of the FHA and other civil rights laws and attorneys in OFH, sometimes in partnership with attorneys from the Department of Justice (DOJ), act as the “prosecutors” who prosecute violations that are uncovered by FHEO.
Attorneys in OFH also serve as civil rights counsel to all of HUD, and help ensure that taxpayer dollars are not spent in a discriminatory way and, indeed, are used in a manner that affirmatively furthers fair housing. HUD’s first Secretary, Robert Weaver, recognized this critical function following decades of federal housing policies designed to entrench segregation.5 Since that time, HUD has been on a long arc towards housing justice, reforming its programs and policies through the internal work of civil rights attorneys and in response to lawsuits challenging the policies and practices of the Department and its funding recipients.6
Investigating and Prosecuting Fair Housing Complaints
HUD has a statutory obligation to receive and investigate allegations of discrimination, to conciliate cases, and to prosecute credible allegations of unlawful discrimination.7 Within HUD, FHEO is responsible for receiving and investigating complaints from members of the public.8 Every year, members of the public submit tens of thousands of allegations of housing discrimination to FHEO in an attempt to seek relief. Of those submissions, thousands raise fair housing issues that FHEO is required by law to investigate.9 Once such a complaint is received and processed by FHEO, it is assigned to an investigator who gathers relevant evidence. FHEO also offers the parties an opportunity to settle, called conciliation, throughout the investigatory process.10 Attorneys in OFH serve a critical role during this investigative process: they act as counsel to FHEO if legal questions arise, advise FHEO on legal standards in cases, and, if necessary, advise or represent FHEO in matters related to the settlement of complaints and when issues with obtaining relevant evidence arise.11
Once the investigator has collected sufficient evidence, they write a determination, evaluating the evidence and reaching a finding as to whether there is reasonable cause to believe discrimination occurred. If FHEO determines that there is no reasonable cause to believe discrimination occurred,12 the determination is sent to the parties and HUD typically has no further role in the case.13 If, however, FHEO determines that there is reasonable cause to believe discrimination occurred, the case is transferred to OFH, where attorneys draft a charge of discrimination based on the determination and evidence that FHEO collected. This “charge” is, essentially, HUD’s version of a legal complaint initiating a lawsuit. The charge initiates a case before HUD’s administrative law judges, after which time either the complainant or the party accused of discrimination can elect to have the case transferred to federal court.14 If any party makes that election, the case is filed by the Department of Justice in the relevant federal district court.15 If no party makes that election, the case is litigated in front of an administrative law judge.16
Conciliation
Before filing a charge, HUD must attempt to voluntarily conciliate FHA and Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) complaints.17 When HUD conciliates, it has an obligation to ensure that the relief is in the public interest. This can mean getting relief for the complainant, for other similarly affected victims, or the public.18 Although the government is not a party to the agreements, HUD and DOJ also retain jurisdiction to enforce these agreements in the event of a breach.19
Fair Housing Enforcement Prior to the Current Presidential Administration
HUD has never had sufficient staff to handle the volume of complaints it receives.20 Moreover, discharging HUD’s investigative role can involve interviewing countless witnesses, reviewing documents, and analyzing data sets, all of which require expertise and extensive resources. Even at the end of the Biden administration, HUD’s Office of the Inspector General (OIG) indicated that FHEO was having persistent difficulties in completing investigations within the time period set in the FHA.21 OIG identified both staffing shortages in FHEO and OFH and the complexity of cases as two of the driving forces behind FHEO’s delay in processing cases.22
Fair Housing Enforcement in the Current Presidential Administration
Since January 2025, the trump Administration has decimated HUD’s civil rights enforcement workforce, severely inhibiting the agency’s ability to police housing discrimination.23 In February 2025, HUD abruptly fired many probationary employees in FHEO and OFH.24 A document then circulated within HUD showing that the “Department of Governmental Efficiency,” or DOGE, was demanding that HUD fire more than three-quarters of FHEO employees.25 Because of that, when HUD offered “voluntary” retirement through the deferred resignation program, hundreds of FHEO investigators accepted the offer rather than risk sudden termination.26 The result was that FHEO lost approximately half of its investigative staff. The reality of that threat was confirmed when, at the start of the October shutdown, HUD issued reduction in force (RIF) notices to 170 more FHEO investigators, including all those working in seven of the ten regional offices and everyone in Puerto Rico.27 Congress nullified those RIF notices, but HUD has given every indication they may proceed with those firings in the future. FHEO has also seen its work restricted through memos that limit the types of cases that staff can investigate, functionally eliminating the ability for the public to receive help from HUD in cases involving race, national origin, sexual orientation or gender identity, disparate impact, environmental justice, appraisal bias, and many other types of cases.28
The Administration has also made severe cuts to OFH. In the aftermath of forced resignations, illegal terminations of probationary employees and whistleblowers, and involuntary reassignments, OFH now only has six line attorneys.29 HUD’s political leadership has unlawfully restricted and undermined the work of these remaining attorneys through gag orders, withdrawing of lawfully issued charges, a refusal to advance legitimate cases of discrimination, canceling or refusing to enter into new conciliation agreements, and more.30
Secretary Scott Turner and other appointees have politicized HUD’s civil rights work, which has traditionally been bipartisan and which has continued to some degree through all prior administrations, in a wholly new way: all settlements now require political approval, appointees alter already agreed-upon settlement terms, reject compensation for survivors of discrimination, and attempt to withdraw prior settlements.31 This is adding to the significant bottleneck for the huge number of cases HUD processes every year.32
The impacts of this politicization have also been felt outside of HUD. HUD’s political leadership has told the state and local agencies that enforce fair housing laws, part of HUD’s Fair Housing Assistance Program (FHAP), that they cannot bring certain types of cases and any attempt to do so will result in removal from the program and the loss of funds. To protect their FHAPs from this politicization, a number of states recently sued HUD, alleging that its threats to remove funding from FHAPs who investigate certain types of cases, or enforce their own state laws that protect more people than federal laws do, is unlawful. The Administration has, suddenly and without notice, terminated grants that the non-profits that enforce fair housing laws have received from Congressionally-appropriated funds as part of HUD’s Fair Housing Initiative Program (FHIP). The outcome of this is inevitable: even as HUD, the federal government’s primary fair housing enforcement agency, refuses to investigate cases, those entities best equipped to make up for HUD’s sudden absence are being stymied in their own enforcement efforts by HUD.
Impact on the Public
The impacts of these reductions have and will continue to be drastic. In one matter, HUD issued a determination of reasonable cause and a charge of discrimination where a homeowners’ association was credibly alleged to have been discriminating on the basis of race.33 Tenants claimed to have experienced horrific racial discrimination for years in their community.34 They claimed that they were called racial epithets and threatened, and that one neighbor in the community reportedly called neo-Nazis to join in the harassment of community members.35 Despite HUD’s investigation and the evidence showing intentional discrimination, HUD chose to withdraw the referral of this charge for prosecution. This was done notwithstanding the fact that doing so is not permitted by the FHA: once HUD has found reasonable cause to believe discrimination occurred, it is statutorily obligated to prosecute or settle the case.36
In a different matter, prospective homebuyers alleged that lenders were charging more to some people living in certain areas than others because those areas had more people of a certain ethnicity.37 In some cases, borrowers were reportedly paying hundreds or thousands of dollars a year more on their mortgages than people who were living just a neighborhood away.38 Despite having determined that reasonable cause existed to believe discrimination had occurred and issuing a charge of discrimination, leadership sought, and obtained, dismissal of the case while it was pending before an Administrative Law Judge.39
Additionally, following an Executive Order that designated English as the official language of the United States, HUD has canceled translation and interpretation contracts, ordered the removal of notices and materials in languages other than English, and has ceased providing services in languages other than English.40 This policy operates to deprive people of crucial services and due process nationwide, but it is especially harmful in places like Puerto Rico. There, HUD serves a population that almost exclusively speaks Spanish.
There are countless other examples that civil servants currently or formerly at HUD can point to where cases were withdrawn, settlements languished awaiting approval, and investigations were ended prematurely or despite clear evidence of discrimination. This is not normal. Dismissing cases after finding evidence of discrimination is unprecedented and, in practice, is no different than refusing to enforce the FHA. While the cases are important, what really matters are the people those cases represent. Thousands of individual victims of discrimination and survivors of domestic violence are having their rights violated right now and cannot seek assistance from HUD. The effects of the decisions of this Administration have already been felt and will continue to be felt for months and years to come.
People will be made homeless, families will have to accept substandard housing, children will have to change schools, and people will not be able to stay in their current jobs. Each case withdrawn, dismissed, or derailed is a person, a family, and a neighbor who has experienced discrimination in obtaining or maintaining housing—the most fundamentally important need. Housing helps you stay warm, stay safe, and obtain access to all facets of life. It facilitates the American Dream.
Call To Action
People have fought, bled, and died for civil rights and housing has always been fundamental to that fight. Housing is about more than just where you go to sleep, it is about where your kids go to school, the job opportunities that are available to you, whether there is a factory emitting toxic pollution next to your backyard, how close you live to a good doctor or dentist, and whether you and your family stay safe. Now, it is up to all of us to continue the legacy of fighting to make equal access to housing a reality. If you read this and are concerned, we urge you to join and amplify organizations focused on fair housing, to organize in your workplace and in your community to demand action from your local, state, and federal public officials to defend fair housing, and to speak out whenever and wherever possible in favor of civil rights. n
Endnotes
1 United States Commission on Civil Rights, The Fair Housing Amendments Act of 1988: The Enforcement Report (September 1994), https://tinyurl.com/4722t4rs.
2 Congressional Research Service, The Fair Housing Act: HUD Oversight, Programs, and Activities (June 15, 2018), https://tinyurl.com/4hxrxdee.
3 Id.
4 U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, Learn About FHEO’s Process to Report and Investigate Housing Discrimination, https://tinyurl.com/yx588ees (last visited February 25, 2026).
5 A ‘Forgotten History’ Of How The U.S. Government Segregated America, NPR, May 3, 2017.
6 See e.g., Shannon v. HUD (1970) (Court of Appeals calls on HUD to assess the racial and socioeconomic impact of the location of future developments, resulting in HUD publishing Site and Neighborhood Standards); Otero v. New York City Housing Authority (1973) (in suit against NYCHA and HUD, challenging a neighborhood preference for replacement housing in an urban renewal area, Court of Appeals extends AFFH obligation to state and local HUD grantees); Young v. Pierce (1985) (A U.S. District Court in Texas holds HUD liable for maintaining a system of segregated public housing in East Texas and orders HUD to undertake remedial efforts).
7 24 CFR § 103.200.
8 U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, Learn About FHEO’s Process to Report and Investigate Housing Discrimination, https://tinyurl.com/yx588ees (last visited February 25, 2026).
9 See, e.g., U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, FHEO Annual Report FY 2023, https://tinyurl.com/5edfuxde (last visited February 25, 2026).
10 National Fair Housing Alliance, 2025 Fair Housing Trends Report, https://tinyurl.com/ykewhw6b (stating that HUD conciliated 567 cases in Fiscal Year 2024).
11 United States Department of Housing and Urban Development, About the Office of General Counsel, Office of Fair Housing, https://tinyurl.com/ym4xjhtf (last visited February 25, 2026); United States Department of Housing and Urban Development, Learn About FHEO’s Process to Report and Investigate Housing Discrimination, https://tinyurl.com/yx588ees (last visited February 25, 2026).
12 HUD determined there was no reasonable cause in more than 500 cases in Fiscal Year 2024. National Fair Housing Alliance, 2025 Fair Housing Trends Report, https://tinyurl.com/ykewhw6b.
13 United States Department of Housing and Urban Development, Learn About FHEO’s Process to Report and Investigate Housing Discrimination, https://tinyurl.com/yx588ees (last visited February 25, 2026).
14 United States Department of Housing and Urban Development, About the Office of General Counsel, Office of Fair Housing, https://tinyurl.com/ym4xjhtf (last visited February 25, 2026); United States Department of Housing and Urban Development, Learn About FHEO’s Process to Report and Investigate Housing Discrimination, https://tinyurl.com/ym4xjhtf (last visited February 25, 2026).
15 United States Department of Housing and Urban Development, Learn About FHEO’s Process to Report and Investigate Housing Discrimination, https://tinyurl.com/ym4xjhtf (last visited February 25, 2026).
16 Id.
17 42 U.S.C. § 3610(b)(1).
18 24 CFR § 103.310.
19 42 U.S.C. § 3614.
20 HUD Office of the Inspector General, Audit Report 2024-BO-0005, FHEO Faces Challenges Completing Investigations Within 100 Days (Sept. 24, 2024).
21 Id.
22 Id.
23 Palmer Heenan, Paul Osadebe, Whistleblower Complaint (August 27, 2025), https://tinyurl.com/25urwub6.
24 See, e.g., Drew Friedman, Across agencies, probationary employees face different fates, Federal News Network, May 21, 2025. These probationary firings were later found to be unlawful. American Federation of Government Employees et al. v. United States Office of Personnel Management, 3:25-cv-01780-WHA (N.D. Cal. Sep. 12, 2025).
25 Sally Ho, Jesse Bedayn, Leaked documents show which of the thousands of HUD workers may be cut across programs, Associated Press, Feb. 21, 2025.
26 Kriston Capps, US Housing Agency Vulnerable to Fraud After DOGE Cuts, Documents Warn, Bloomberg, June 5, 2025.
27 Kriston Capps, Sarah Holder, HUD Issues Layoff Notices, Targeting Fair Housing Staff with Deep Cuts, Bloomberg, October 11, 2025.
28 John Gibbs, Memorandum re: Fair Housing Act Enforcement and Prioritization of Resources, https://tinyurl.com/jhb82hau (last visited February 25, 2026).
29 Palmer Heenan, Paul Osadebe, Whistleblower Complaint (August 27, 2025), https://tinyurl.com/25urwub6.
30 Id.
31 Id.
32 Id.
33 Determination of Reasonable Cause, Department of Housing and Urban Development on behalf of Complainants v. Providence Homeowners Association et al., FHEO Case Nos: 06-22-4391-8 (among others), January 14, 2025, https://tinyurl.com/72y6r7dk; Jesse Coburn, Federal Investigators Were Preparing Two Texas Housing Discrimination Cases — Until trump Took Over, Pro Publica (March 25, 2025)
34 Determination of Reasonable Cause, Department of Housing and Urban Development on behalf of Complainants v. Providence Homeowners Association et al., FHEO Case Nos: 06-22-4391-8 (among others), January 14, 2025, https://tinyurl.com/72y6r7dk; Jesse Coburn, Federal Investigators Were Preparing Two Texas Housing Discrimination Cases — Until trump Took Over, Pro Publica (March 25, 2025).
35 Determination of Reasonable Cause, Department of Housing and Urban Development on behalf of Complainants v. Providence Homeowners Association et al., FHEO Case Nos: 06-22-4391-8 (among others), January 14, 2025, https://tinyurl.com/72y6r7dk; Jesse Coburn, Federal Investigators Were Preparing Two Texas Housing Discrimination Cases — Until trump Took Over, Pro Publica (March 25, 2025).
36 42 U.S.C. § 3610(g).
37 Charge of Discrimination, Secretary v. Willow Bend Mortgage Company, LLC, FHEO No. 00-25-4838-8, January 13, 2025, https://tinyurl.com/3tp6vw64.
38 Id.
39 Id.
40 Ryan King and John Christensen, HUD launches English-only initiative for all department services: ‘Speak with one voice and one language, New York Post, August 17, 2025.
s. e. anderson
author of The Black Holocaust for Beginners
"If WORK was good for you, the rich would leave none for the poor." (Haiti)
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