More than 400 employees at the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) have been issued layoff notices, with the largest cuts hitting the Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity (FHEO) office.
Officials say the FHEO division became a hub for left-wing activism under Joe Biden.
The layoffs come as the federal government shutdown stretches into its third week, after Democrats refused to approve a temporary funding extension unless Republicans added billions in new spending.
President Donald Trump’s administration, in a recent court filing, said roughly 4,000 workers across seven agencies should be let go, including 442 at HUD.
Biden’s HUD: Ideology Over Mission
HUD’s claimed mission was to enforce the Civil Rights Act and process straightforward housing discrimination complaints.
However, it had drifted into radical ideological crusades under Biden.
The office’s budget grew by 20% and nearly 600 people were on staff.
Yet the unit became bogged down with cases built around “systemic racism” theories and identity politics rather than enforcing the law.
It failed to process legitimate complaints while pouring resources into issues like transgenderism and race-based theories that had nothing to do with the Civil Rights Act, critics warned.
In one example, Biden’s HUD aggressively pushed the claim that appraisers were undervaluing homes owned by black families compared to white families.
This came even though appraisals are driven by sales data and often conducted without knowledge of the homeowner’s race.
Meanwhile, clear-cut cases went ignored.
A double-amputee in a wheelchair waited two years for a decision on his complaint after a homeowners’ association blocked him from widening his driveway for accessibility.
The Trump administration has since moved to address his case as an example of the department returning to its true mission.
A 2024 inspector general’s report found that FHEO missed the legal 100-day deadline on more than 70% of discrimination complaints.
Radical Rules That Threatened Suburbs
FHEO also pursued sweeping changes that critics warned would have redesigned American suburbs by federal mandate.
The division revived the Obama-era “Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing” rule, which sought to label single-family zoning and minimum lot sizes as discriminatory.
The rule would have forced local governments to allow apartment-style density in suburban neighborhoods or risk losing federal funds.
The Trump administration has repealed the regulation once again, halting what officials described as a backdoor attempt to “abolish the suburbs.”
Even Democratic officials balked at FHEO’s theories. When HUD accused the city of Chicago of “environmental racism” for building a recycling facility in a minority neighborhood, then-Mayor Lori Lightfoot blasted the claim as “absurd” before ultimately backing down.
Returning to Core Functions
The HUD official emphasized that the Trump administration is not eliminating the office, but refocusing it on its actual mandate — enforcing anti-discrimination laws as written, not expanding them to cover unrelated issues.
Communications will now appear only in English, the official said, noting that the lack of translation is not discrimination under the Civil Rights Act.
Employees were given 60 days’ notice of the layoffs, which HUD had been planning for months.
Broader Federal Rollbacks
HUD is not alone, however.
Layoffs have also been announced in other bloated agencies that drifted from administration priorities: 1,400 at the IRS, 466 at the Department of Education, and 187 at the Department of Energy.
The moves mark another step by President Trump to dismantle Biden-era bureaucratic expansions and return federal agencies to their core missions.
READ MORE – Chuck Schumer Calls on Americans to ‘Forcefully Rise Up’ Against Trump
Our comment section is restricted to members of the Slay News community only.
To join, create a free account HERE.
If you are already a member, log in HERE.