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Congress authorized the Rental Assistance Demonstration (RAD) to create a new tool for public housing agencies to address the backlog of capital repairs in the nation’s public housing stock and to stem the loss of affordable units. Recently, just four years after HUD made its first awards under this program, HUD announced that the program has crossed over 60,000 units and raised a total of $4 billion to rehabilitate and in some cases replace affordable properties ...

The White House recently announced that President Trump intends to nominate Pamela Patenaude to serve as Deputy Secretary for Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and Neal Rackleff of Texas to be an Assistant Secretary of HUD, Community Planning and Development.

In a recent interview with The Associated Press, HUD Secretary Ben Carson said he expects to release a policy agenda within the next few months that delivers “bang for the buck,” partly by encouraging more private sector collaboration. He said he expects to advance public-private partnerships, extending low-income housing tax credits and providing more opportunities for public-housing residents to get jobs at the buildings where they live.

In 2009, Westchester County in New York State entered into a landmark desegregation agreement with the federal government. In April 2013, the United States Justice Department sent Westchester officials a letter saying that the county had failed to enact legislation prohibiting housing discrimination based on source of income as ordered by the settlement and by a federal court ruling.

At a recent conference of the National Low-Income Housing Council, HUD Secretary Ben Carson said the Trump administration will seek to include housing funding in a future infrastructure spending bill. Secretary Carson said this to alleviate worry about the Trump administration’s proposed budget cut of $6.2 billion from HUD.

President Trump recently issued Executive Order 13781 requiring the director of the Office of Management and Budget to propose a plan to eliminate unnecessary federal agencies, components of agencies, and agency programs, and to merge functions for greater efficiency.

For the first time, a federal judge in Colorado ruled that the federal law barring housing discrimination protects LGBT people. The married couple who brought the case were denied a rental home along with their two children by a landlord who gave as a reason their “unique relationship,” they claimed in court.

HUD recently released a report that compared the health of HUD-assisted adults to the general adult population. The report is called “A Health Picture of HUD-Assisted Adults.” In 2011, HUD and the National Center for Health Statistics agreed to link administrative records for individuals receiving housing assistance from HUD with records from the National Health Interview Survey.

On March 2, Dr. Ben S. Carson, Sr. was sworn in as the 17th Secretary of HUD. Secretary Carson will now lead a cabinet agency of approximately 8,000 employees who oversee most of the nation’s affordable housing programs and will manage a nearly $50 billion budget. Sheila Greenwood, formerly an assistant secretary at HUD under President George W. Bush and a lobbyist for Prudential Financial Inc., will serve as Dr. Carson’s chief of staff.

The Urban Institute recently released a report entitled Moving to Work and Neighborhood Opportunity. This report explored how public housing authorities (PHAs) granted Moving to Work (MTW) status by HUD use their unique policy and fiscal flexibility to help low-income households move to opportunity-rich neighborhoods. Policy and programs adopted through MTW include changes to the tenant-based Housing Choice Voucher (HCV) program or policies that increase the affordable ...