A small group of current and former Department of Housing and Urban Development employees launched a website on Thursday to accuse the Trump administration of blocking enforcement of federal fair housing laws. The site, DearAmericaletters.org, carries anonymous letters from staffers who say the agency has pulled back from its civil rights duties.
One letter says, “This administration has ground fair housing enforcement to a halt.” Another adds, “Worse, they’re picking and choosing which protected classes count.” A third, signed by “a tired HUD employee,” says, “Months later, I still think about the people impacted by the work I was forced to abandon.” The employees chose to remain anonymous because they feared they would be fired for speaking out.
The public rebuke lands after more than six months of mounting friction inside the agency. Last fall, two HUD civil rights lawyers were fired after going to Congress with concerns that the department was unlawfully restricting fair housing enforcement. Paul Osadebe, one of the critics, said that more than six months later, “it’s still happening.” He added, “We’re not being allowed to help the people that we’re supposed to be serving,” and said, “If it’s something to do with race, if it’s anything to do with gender, you’re just not allowed to touch that anymore.”
The Fair Housing Act of 1968 bans housing discrimination based on race, national origin, religion, gender, family status or disability, and HUD is required by law to investigate all cases it receives and pursue legal action or a settlement if it finds discrimination. But the dispute has widened as the department changes its priorities. In a video message for Fair Housing Month, HUD Secretary Scott Turner said the law had been twisted to serve “radical ideologies” focused on diversity, equity and inclusion. Turner said, “The Biden administration weaponized the Fair Housing Act to target Americans,” and added, “They assumed too many Americans were racists until proven innocent,” and “They followed the broken compass of DEI instead of the plain intent of the law.”
Turner also said the Trump administration aims “to restore sanity to enforcement” and cited HUD’s proposal to end liability for unintentional discrimination, known as disparate impact. The agency is investigating Boston, Minneapolis and Washington state over housing plans meant to address historical racial discrimination, while internal memos last year said HUD wanted to reduce compliance burdens and eliminate certain practices, including cases involving gender identity and environmental justice. The memos also covered race-based cases focused on protecting a group rather than one person. HUD is pressing states to follow that shift, and it said it will not reimburse discrimination cases based on sexual orientation, gender identity, criminal record, use of a housing voucher or English-language proficiency. Fifteen blue states and the District of Columbia are suing over that change, saying it is arbitrary and unconstitutional.
For the anonymous staffers behind DearAmericaletters.org, the website turns an internal fight into a public record. The question now is not whether the agency’s line has shifted; it is whether the courts or Congress will force HUD to enforce the law as written.