On May 21, the Secretary of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, Dr. Ben Carson, testified before the House Financial Services Committee at a hearing entitled “Housing in America: Oversight of the U.S. Department of Housing and Development” where he received pointed questions from the committee Democrats on recent HUD proposals such as rent reform, the non-citizen rule, and HUD’s FY20 budget request which would slash funding for public housing.
After the hearing, CLPHA Executive Director Sunia Zaterman was asked by USA TODAY reporter Nicholas Wu about the accuracy of Carson’s justification of the non-citizen rule – that, based on Section 214, the Secretary may not support housing for people who are not here legally. Zaterman told Wu that the law “explicitly authorizes both those with eligible and ineligible immigration status to occupy units in ‘covered housing programs.’”
“This is a punitive act,” she said. “Even HUD’s justification laid out the negative impacts of doing this on the households themselves which often include children that are eligible and parents and heads of household who are not.” Read the USA TODAY article.