The Trump administration thinks HUD’s Disaster Relief is a waste of money. They’re wrong

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) has announced its own DOGE Task Force this week, after Elon Musk’s team ravaged the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) last week. While American voters have little transparency into this undemocratic firing squad, we know that they intend to fire half of all HUD’s employees, including those who work on enforcing fair housing, compiling housing data, and administering disaster relief funding. All this is done under the guise of seeking to improve government efficiency and cutting the federal budget. 

Mind you, HUD has already been an extremely underfunded agency for years: time and again, members of Congress seem keen on proving government dysfunction by cutting out any possible resources for success. Dedicated HUD employees have for a long time worked with way too few resources to house Americans facing homelessness, connect renters with fair and affordable units, offer housing counseling to first-time homebuyers, and provide community development support, including after disasters.

HUD staffers have done so without much support and on public sector salaries – a far cry from the salaries Elon Musk pays to tech bros – but with a dedication to making a difference for American families and communities.

Now the Trump Administration seeks to further eviscerate this agency, in the middle of a deep housing crisis that they claim to care about. It is entirely unclear how cutting HUD in half will help lower rents, build more housing, or help a younger generation become homeowners too. Among the targets is the HUD team that helps communities impacted by disasters: staffers that administer the Community Development Block Grant Disaster Relief (CDBG-DR) program. In 2023 Congress appropriated $3 billion for this program and since its inception in 1998 this grant program has distributed almost $100 billion in total across the country. 

I recently visited one of these disaster-vulnerable communities, talking to people in Eastern Kentucky to study and write a report about local housing challenges. This rural Appalachian area experienced a devastating flash flood in 2022, when more than nine thousand Kentucky families lost their homes, and more than 40 Kentuckians lost their lives. As this was a once-in-a-thousand-year event, virtually no one had flood insurance. Families lost their life’s possessions overnight, many camped in FEMA trailers for months and years, and today many Kentuckians still watch long-familiar mountain creeks anxiously during storms. Sadly, just this weekend, yet another flash flood hit the town of Hazard in Eastern Kentucky. At least two people died and flooding damage in this town is reportedly even worse than two years ago. 

Last year, HUD approved $300 million in disaster relief funding for Eastern Kentucky. At the time, Kentucky Senator Mitch McConnell applauded this investment: “I made a commitment to stand by the side of Eastern Kentuckians and fight in Washington for big, real-dollar investments in disaster recovery. Today, I’m proud to see nearly $300 million in long-term recovery funding move closer toward rebuilding homes and communities, revitalizing the local economy, and supporting survivors who still need our help.” Today HUD support means that hundreds of new homes are being built in Eastern Kentucky for 2022 flood survivors. These modest two-to-three-bedroom homes are going up as we speak, most of them built on the flattened mountaintops of former strip mines, as high-ground “mountaintop communities” safe from flooding. 

Eastern Kentucky has few internal resources to pull itself up by its bootstraps – it has long been depleted by corporate exploitation and is further devastated by disasters. Federal HUD support has meant that thousands of Kentuckians have a home again. It is also helping to protect the future of the broader Eastern Kentucky community: the destruction of nine thousand homes has been an existential threat for the future of this entire region. Without rebuilding, rural communities such as those in Eastern Kentucky risk entering a downward spiral of no return, as too many families leave to sustain local economies and small businesses. 

So is HUD’s disaster relief wasteful? I urge you to talk to anyone in Eastern Kentucky, who will beg to differ. This is not a partisan issue, as climate disasters have no concern for party lines or Congressional district boundaries. Through HUD’s disaster relief, the federal government offers a lifeline for entire communities to not only continue to exist but to thrive. 

Sharon Cornelissen is the Director of Housing at the Consumer Federation of America