ICYMI | Secretary Scott Turner Discusses HUD Priorities and Housing Agenda — “We want to create a culture of excellence at HUD.”

This post was originally published by the Department of Housing and Urban Development.

Washington, DC – U.S. Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Secretary Scott Turner sat down with Bret Baier on Fox News’ ‘Special Report’ for a behind the scenes look at HUD headquarters and to layout his priorities and vision for the department.

Watch the full interview HERE filmed live from HUD or read highlights below.

HUD’s Mission to Serve

“HUD is a unique place…we serve the most vulnerable people of our nation, as it pertains to housing, as it pertains to homelessness, and as it pertains to disaster recovery…it’s not political, housing impacts every American.”

Building on Past Successes

“…With the affordable housing crisis, opportunity zones are a great platform and a great vehicle for us to build affordable housing and new operating businesses which will be a blessing to our country.”

Fostering a Culture of Excellence

“We are looking to do better things with this building to create a better culture, be better stewards of taxpayer dollars, and create an environment where people want to come work…we want to create a culture of excellence at HUD.”

“…We are mission-minded and laser-focused. I believe if we can lead in a righteous way with righteous understanding and clarity, the way we serve will be surgical…it will be specific…no wasted time…no wasted resources…the American people deserve that.”

Read More…

Secretary Turner also spoke with Brendan Pedersen of Punchbowl News for a feature in The Vault. Secretary Turner discussed the department’s housing agenda including the agency’s role with Congress and policy priorities.

“HUD Secretary Turner on the Trump housing agenda”

Congress and HUD

“…to not only continue opportunity zones.. to unleash the potential in our country, from an investment standpoint, from a building standpoint….We need to work with Congress to address the permanent chassis requirement, to unleash more creativity, to bring in more development of manufactured homes… We’re responsible for the CDBG (Community Development Block Grant) fund. That, and other formulas at HUD programs, haven’t been looked at since the 70s. Really, a lot of the formulas for funding have been on autopilot… With help from Congress…HUD needs to evaluate each formula ‘so that we don’t have to rewrite the rules every time a disaster hits.’”

Policy Priorities

“Public housing is not supposed to be permanent…public housing is a trampoline, if you will, to help the most vulnerable of our society. It was never meant to be a hammock… …We don’t want to grow HUD programs, we don’t want to add more people, more citizens to subsidies. We want to work to get people off of government subsidy, to get people to self-sustainability.”