Fudge resigns as Housing Minister

Marcia L. Fudge, the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, announced Monday that she would resign this month after three years of presiding over seismic shifts in the housing market due to the Covid-19 pandemic and changes in the economy.

Ms. Fudge, 71, a former Ohio congresswoman, attributed her decision to a desire to spend more time with her 92-year-old mother and suggested that major policy action between now and the election was unlikely anyway. But her departure undermined a White House plan to keep the president’s Cabinet and senior team intact through the November election.

“Under Marcia’s transformational leadership, we have worked hard to lower housing costs and increase supply,” President Biden said in a statement. “Thanks to Minister Fudge,” he added, “we have helped first-time buyers enter the housing market and are working to reduce rental costs. And there are more homes currently under construction than at any time in the last fifty years.”

Ms. Fudge is only the second of the original 15 Cabinet members designated by law to leave under Mr. Biden, matching the lowest turnover rate in modern times. That’s a stark contrast to the administration of former President Donald J. Trump, when the Cabinet was a virtual turnstile on the subway, with secretaries coming and going despite resignations and resignations. Marty Walsh, Biden’s Secretary of Labor, resigned a year ago.

Jeffrey D. Zients, the White House chief of staff, had last fall asked all remaining Cabinet secretaries to either stay for the rest of Biden’s term or leave immediately so that no major positions would be vacant during an election year. A White House official, who asked not to be identified discussing personnel matters, said Ms. Fudge made that commitment at the time but felt compelled to change her mind given her mother’s age.

Adrianne Todman, the deputy housing secretary, will take over the department as acting secretary once Ms. Fudge’s resignation becomes official on March 22, the White House said in the statement. At that point, with barely seven months to go until November, it seems unlikely that a new candidate could be chosen, vetted and confirmed by the Senate before the election. Mr Walsh’s designated successor is yet to be confirmed 13 months after he announced his resignation.

Ms. Fudge, a former mayor of Warrensville Heights, Ohio, who served in the House of Representatives from 2008 to 2021, said she planned to return to Ohio to be with her mother and other relatives and that she had no plans to ever run for office again.

“It’s time to go home,” Mrs. Fudge told USA Today. “I strongly believe that I have done just about everything I could do at HUD for this administration as we enter this crazy, foolish election season.”

Mr. Biden has credited Ms. Fudge with reviving the department after what he characterized as the neglect of the Trump years. “When I took office, we inherited a broken housing system, with fair housing and civil rights protections that had been severely dismantled under the previous administration,” he said.

“On Day 1,” he added, “Marcia went to work rebuilding the Department of Housing and Urban Development, and for the past three years she has been a strong voice for expanding efforts to build generational wealth through homeownership, reducing costs and promoting equity. for American tenants.”

In fact, housing costs have been rising faster than inflation, posing a major challenge, especially for younger Americans just getting started, and hampering efforts by major cities to address the growing problem of homelessness. The cost of shelter rose by an average of 6 percent last year, compared to an overall inflation rate of 3 percent.

“I know that the cost of housing is critically important to families across the country,” Biden said Monday in a speech to the National League of Cities in Washington. Now that inflation has fallen, he said mortgage rates should soon fall as well.

“But I’m not waiting,” he added. In his budget plan released Monday, he said he was proposing a tax cut of about $400 a month for the next three years to help qualified homebuyers “because every family deserves a place they can call home, a place where they can live their American lives.” can make dreams come true. WHERE.”

He said his plan would also help build two million new homes and provide municipalities with $8 billion to get unhoused people off the streets. “The bottom line is we have to build, build, build,” he said. “In this way we can reduce housing costs for good.”