HUD Secretary Marcia L. Fudge to Step Down
Deputy Secretary and former NAHRO CEO Adrianne Todman to serve as Acting Secretary
HUD Secretary Marcia Fudge said that she would be resigning and retiring from public life, effective March 22. In a statement released by HUD, the Secretary states, “For the last three years, I have fully embraced HUD’s mission to create strong, sustainable, inclusive communities and quality affordable homes for all. The people HUD serves are those who are often left out and left behind. These are my people. They serve as my motivation for everything we have been able to accomplish.”
The accomplishments she lists include:
- Helping more than 2 million families stay in their homes and avoid foreclosure;
- Funding more than 2 million units of public and multifamily housing;
- Spending more than 20% of HUD’s procurement dollars with Black, Brown and other small, disadvantaged businesses in the last year along;
- Serving or permanently housing more than 1.2 million people experiencing homelessness; and
- Enforcing Fair Housing laws and taking a stance against racial bias and discrimination in the appraisal market.
A USA Today article notes that Secretary Fudge “worries there’s not enough funding for all the work still needed, including building more affordable housing and repairing aging public housing developments” and notes that she “wished the agency had gotten more than $3 billion to improve public housing and multi-family housing. The need is more than $70 billion, she said.” The more-than-$70-billion figure echoes NAHRO’s own estimate of the Capital Fund shortfall.
In a statement released by the White House, President Biden thanked Secretary Fudge for her service, noting that “On Day One, Marcia got to work rebuilding the Department of Housing and Urban Development, and over the past three years she has been a strong voice for expanding efforts to build generational wealth through homeownership and lowering costs and promoting fairness for America’s renters….From her time as a mayor, to her years as a fierce advocate in the U.S. House of Representatives, Marcia’s vision, passion, and focus on increasing economic opportunity have been assets to our country. I’m grateful for all of her contributions toward a housing system that works for all Americans, and I wish her well in her next chapter.”
NAHRO CEO Mark Thiele made the following statement regarding Secretary Fudge, who last addressed NAHRO members at the 2023 Washington Conference: “We thank Secretary Fudge for her service at HUD, particularly her support for increasing the number of affordable homes, and her partnership with our more than 26,000 members. Under her leadership, HUD built and repaired more than 500k affordable homes, provided housing agencies with more tools to increase housing supply via Faircloth to RAD, expanded rental assistance, served more than 1.2 million people experiencing homelessness, and worked to address fair housing and equity issues across the nation. We are grateful for her work and wish her the best.”