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housing
Warren Calls for Probe as Whistleblowers Accuse Trump Appointees of 'Systematically Destroying' Fair Housing Act
Warren says new whistleblower reports "show the extent of the Trump administration's attack on civil rights and show how the administration appears to be ignoring the law."
Sep 22, 2025
US Sen. Elizabeth Warren is calling for an investigation into the Department of Housing and Urban Development after several whistleblowers reported that Trump appointees have gutted enforcement of the decades-old law banning housing discrimination.
A New York Times report published Monday, quotes "half a dozen current and former employees of HUD’s fair housing office" who "said that the Trump political appointees had made it nearly impossible for them to do their jobs" enforcing the 1968 Fair Housing Act "which involve investigating and prosecuting landlords, real estate agents, lenders and others who discriminate based on race, religion, gender, family status or disability."
In a video posted to social media, Warren (D-Mass.) explained that “if you’re a mom protecting her kids from living with an abusive father or if you’re getting denied a mortgage because of the color of your skin, you have civil rights protection under US law. But the Trump administration has been systematically destroying these federal protections for renters and homeowners.”
According to the Times, when President Donald Trump's Department of Government Efficiency, formerly led by billionaire Elon Musk, launched its crusade to dismantle large parts of the federal government at the start of Trump's second term earlier this year, the Office of Fair Housing (OFH) had its staff cut by 65% through layoffs and reassignments, with the number of employees dropping from 31 to 11. Just six of the remaining staff now work on fair housing cases.
The number of discrimination charges pursued by the office has plummeted since Trump took office. In most years, it has 35. During Trump's second term, the office has pursued just four. Meanwhile, it's obtained just $200,000 total in legal settlements after previously obtaining anywhere from $4 million to $8 million per year.
Emails and memos obtained by the Times show a pattern of Trump appointees obstructing investigations:
In one email, a Trump appointee... described decades of housing discrimination cases as “artificial, arbitrary, and unnecessary.”
In another, a career supervisor in the department’s [OFH] objected to lawyers being reassigned to other offices; the supervisor was fired six days later for insubordination.
In a third, the office’s director of enforcement warned that Trump appointees were using gag orders and intimidation to block discrimination cases from moving forward. The urgent message was sent to a US senator, who is referring it to the department’s acting inspector general for investigation.
Several lawyers said they have been restricted from using past cases in enforcement and communicating with certain clients without approval from Trump's appointees.
A memo also reportedly went out to employees informing them that documents “contrary to administration policy” would be thrown out, and that “tenuous theories of discrimination” would no longer be pursued.
Among those supposedly "tenuous" cases have been ones involving appraisal bias—the practice of undervaluing homes owned by Black families—zoning restrictions blocking housing for Black and Latino families, and cases related to discrimination against people over gender or gender expression.
The administration has also abandoned cases related to the racist practice of "redlining"—the decades-old practice of denying mortgages to minorities and others in minority neighborhoods—with memos from Trump appointees calling the concept "legally unsound."
The changes follow a sweeping set of executive orders from Trump during his first week in office, targeting "diversity equity, and inclusion" (DEI) programs. Employees at the Office of Fair Housing told the Times that Trump appointees had begun to describe much of the department's work as "an offshoot of DEI."
A HUD spokesperson, Kasey Lovett, told the Times that it was "patently false" to suggest that the administration was trying to weaken the Fair Housing Act. She pointed out that HUD was still handling approximately 4,100 cases this year, on par with the previous year. As the Times notes, "Lovett did not address, however, how many of the cases had been investigated or had resulted in legal action."
According to the Times:
Hundreds of pending fair housing cases were frozen, and some settlements revoked, even when accusations of discrimination had been substantiated, according to the interviews and the internal communications.
In one instance, a large homeowner’s association in Texas was found to have banned the use of housing vouchers by Black residents. That case had been referred to the Justice Department, but the referral was abruptly withdrawn by the new Trump appointees.
Four current staff members have provided the trove of documents to Warren, who announced Monday that she'd sent a request to Brian Harrison, HUD’s acting inspector general, to open an investigation into its handling of discrimination cases.
Warren said that the documents "show the extent of the Trump administration's attack on civil rights and show how the administration appears to be ignoring the law."
In a press release from the Democrats on the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs, Warren, the ranking member, highlighted the particularly devastating impact staffing cuts have had on the enforcement of complaints under the Violence Against Women Act, which the Times says only two of the six lawyers remaining at HUD have experience with.
According to Warren, whistleblowers said the cuts were "placing survivors in greater danger of suffering additional trauma, physical violence, and even death."
Warren said that as a result of the hundreds of dropped cases, "Now people are asking, 'well, why would I file a case at all if nothing's going to happen?'"
Calling for an independent investigation, Warren said, "We wrote these laws to make this a fairer America, and now it's time to enforce those laws."
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'Just Kill Em': Fox News Host Endorses Giving Homeless People 'Involuntary Lethal Injection'
"Universal healthcare, housing, and anti-poverty programs are considered more 'radical' on Fox News than mass murder," said one healthcare advocate.
Sep 14, 2025
Fox News host Brian Kilmeade is facing calls to resign after suggesting earlier this week that the state should execute homeless people who decline help during a live broadcast.
Kilmeade made the comments during a Wednesday episode of Fox & Friends, during which the panel discussed the recent shocking video of the murder of Ukrainian refugee Iryna Zarutska aboard a train in Charlotte, North Carolina, by a mentally ill homeless man, which has ignited a flurry of often racist vitriol on the right toward Black Americans and homeless people.
Another of the hosts, Lawrence Jones, claimed that the government has "given billions of dollars to mental health, to the homeless population," but that "a lot of them don't want to take the programs, a lot of them don't want to get the help that is necessary."
Jones continued: "You can't give them a choice. Either you take the resources that we're going to give you, or you decide that you're going to be locked up in jail. That's the way it has to be now."
Kilmeade then interjected with his suggestion that instead of jail, they should be given "involuntary lethal injection, or something. Just kill 'em."
As one X user noted, Jones and co-host Ainsley Earhardt, "[didn't] even blink an eye" in response to this call for mass murder.
While the claim that homeless people often "refuse" abundant services is a common talking point, it is not borne out by data. According to a report by the National Alliance to End Homelessness in 2023, more than three-fourths of direct service providers reported that they were forced to turn away homeless people due to staffing shortages.
But even in cases where homeless people are offered services—such as temporary shelter beds—and decline them, they often do so not because they prefer to be on the street but because shelters are often overcrowded and poorly maintained, or have restrictive rules that require them to separate from their families, pets, and belongings.
When homeless people are offered permanent shelter, they are comparatively much more likely to accept it. According to one 2020 study from UC San Francisco, 86% of "high-risk" chronically homeless people given access to permanent supportive housing were successfully housed and remained in their housing for several years, a much higher rate than those given temporary solutions.
But as Melanie D'Arrigo, executive director of the Campaign for New York Health, wrote on X, "Universal healthcare, housing, and anti-poverty programs are considered more 'radical' on Fox News than mass murder."
Kilmeade's calls to execute the homeless were met with horror and disgust from advocates. Donald Whitehead, executive director of the National Coalition for the Homeless, called for Kilmeade to resign.
“It is dangerous. It shows a lack of human compassion and it is really the worst possible time for that kind of language to be expressed,” Whitehead told the Irish Star.
Jesse Rabinowitz, communications and campaign manager with the National Homelessness Law Center in Washington, DC, noted in The Independent that Kilmeade's comments come as the Trump administration "is proposing government-run detention camps and massive psychiatric asylums" to house the homeless.
In August, the president launched a crackdown against homeless encampments in DC that advocates say has left hundreds of people with nowhere to go and dependent on overwhelmed city services. Meanwhile, his administration and recent Republican legislation have introduced massive cuts to housing funding for homeless people across the United States.
“America’s homeless population includes over a million children and tens of thousands of veterans, many of whom served in Iraq or Afghanistan,” said Rep. Don Beyer (D-Va.). “Nobody deserves to be murdered by the government for mental illness or poverty. These Fox hosts are calling for mass murder—it’s sick.”
Kilmeade apologized for his comment on Sunday, describing it as an "extremely callous remark.” There is no indication from Fox News that Kilmeade will be subject to any disciplinary action over his remarks, which critics found noteworthy given the punishments other figures in mainstream media have faced for saying far less.
Photojournalist Zach D. Roberts pointed out that earlier this week, MSNBC fired contributor Matthew Dowd for criticizing the "hateful" and "divisive" rhetoric of right-wing activist Charlie Kirk shortly after he'd been assassinated.
"On MSNBC, a contributor got fired for lightly criticizing Charlie Kirk," Roberts said. "Meanwhile, on Fox News, Brian Kilmeade calls for the murder of homeless people for being homeless. Nothing has happened to him. I don't know if there can be a more obvious divide in politics."
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Advocates Rally Against Bill to Jail and Fine Homeless People in DC
A bill about to be marked up in Congress would allow people who sleep outside or in cars to be fined up to $500 or imprisoned for up to 30 days.
Sep 09, 2025
Advocates for homeless people are urging Congress to stop a bill that will allow people in Washington, DC to be fined or jailed for sleeping on the streets.
The bill, known as HR 5163, was introduced in the US House of Representatives last week by Rep. William Timmons (R-S.C.), as President Donald Trump's militarized takeover of the nation's capital moves into its second month.
Federal law enforcement has already forcibly cleared dozens of homeless encampments in DC under Trump's July executive order, which directed local and federal authorities to fight what it called "endemic vagrancy" in US cities.
Though the Trump administration claims that it has helped to find shelter for those living in the homeless encampments demolished by federal agents, homeless people and advocates in the city told CNN in a report published Monday that federal law enforcement "just told homeless people to move from encampments when they were cleared" and have often taken their possessions, while providing them little assistance and foisting that responsibility onto the city.
Timmons' bill, which is scheduled to be marked up by the House Oversight Committee on Wednesday, would further the criminalization of homelessness by codifying it into federal law.
It would ban people in the District of Columbia from setting up or "making preparations" to set up temporary structures to sleep outside. It would also make it illegal to sleep inside a car. Those found in violation will be subject to fines up to $500 or up to 30 days in prison.
It is one of several bills Congress will consider that could tighten federal control over Washington, DC. Brianne Nadeau, a member of DC's city council, said it and other bills "will do direct and serious harm to the district" and represent "an unprecedented attack on home rule and on the 700,000-plus residents that call DC home."
According to the most recent data from the US Department of Housing and Urban Development, there are about 5,600 people in Washington, DC experiencing sheltered and unsheltered homelessness on a given night.
One recent investigation found that Trump's deployment of the National Guard to DC costs roughly four times as much as it would cost to provide housing to every homeless person in the city.
"Instead of making rent cheaper and helping people make ends meet, Congress is considering a bill that would jail or fine people who have no choice but to sleep outside," said the DC-based National Homelessness Law Center (NHLC). "That's shameful."
The group and others urged voters around the country to contact their representatives and pressure them to oppose the bill.
"Friends outside of DC, we need your help. We have no vote in Congress, yet some people in Congress want to write our laws, and they want DC to lock people up for being homeless," the Washington Legal Clinic for the Homeless posted on X. "Tell Congress NO."
The NHLC said voters should instead urge Congress to back the Housing Not Handcuffs Act introduced by Reps. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) and Maxwell Frost (D-Fla.) in June, following the Supreme Court's decision the year before to allow cities to ban homeless people from public spaces.
The Democratic bill would stop law enforcement from arresting and ticketing homeless people for camping on federal lands or asking for donations in public places, which advocates say would force Congress to look to long-term housing investment as a solution to homelessness rather than punitive measures to force people off the streets.
According to a May study published in the Policy Studies Journal, the first to ever look at the effects of homelessness criminalization on a national scale, cities that passed ordinances banning outdoor camping have not only failed to reduce homelessness, but actually saw slight increases in their unhoused populations.
Trump's punitive approach to homelessness is broadly unpopular. In a February YouGov survey conducted with the ACLU, 75% said that homelessness is primarily caused by the lack of affordable housing rather than an issue of crime, while 77% said they believed it would be better solved by housing and expanding social services rather than arrests.
"Imposing a $500 fine or sending an unhoused person to jail for 30 days is cruel and shameful," Nadeau said. "Being unhoused is not a crime."
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