The Trump administration asked Democratic Boston Mayor Michelle Wu’s office for clarification on Thursday about its stated goal to prioritize “non-white” people for taxpayer-funded housing assistance.
The Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) “has reason to believe” Boston is distributing federal housing funds in a discriminatory manner, the department warned in a letter to Chief of Housing Sheila Dillon obtained by the Daily Caller News Foundation. The letter cites materials from the city’s website, including a document about “Goals and Outcomes” for 2023 that says the city “provided $4.9 million of financial assistance to 165 (62%) non-white households to enable them to purchase their first home, reducing the barriers to homeownership for Black, Indigenous and People of Color (BIPOC) households.”
The city’s website also says part of its 2025 strategy is to “reduce racial disparities through homeownership and development opportunities for BIPOC-led organizations,” HUD’s letter notes.
“These statements indicate that the City of Boston is not in compliance with HUD’s obligation to ensure fair and equal access to federal benefits and to comply with federal law,” HUD wrote.
Dillon did not respond to the DCNF’s request for comment.
The letter asks Dillon’s office to provide communications and records within 15 days about “race or national origin” as they relate to HUD funds and about Boston’s history of compliance with the Civil Rights Act, the Constitution’s Equal Protection Clause and the Fair Housing Act. HUD can legally withhold federal funds from Boston if it refuses to comply with its requests, the department warned.
HUD Secretary Scott Turner, a President Donald Trump appointee, has worked to remove what he calls “far-left agenda items” from the agency’s priorities since taking office in February, focusing on addressing America’s cost-of-living crisis. Among his first actions in February was to announce that HUD will no longer force an Obama administration rule requiring domestic violence shelters and other facilities to accept men who identify as women into women’s housing to receive federal funds.
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