A federal judge yesterday temporarily blocked the Trump administration from laying off thousands more workers during an ongoing government shutdown, including around 442 from the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD).
Granting a request in a lawsuit by federal labor unions, Judge Susan Illston in the Northern District of California cited President Donald Trump’s statements regarding the political nature of the firings, and noted that former employees did not have access to grievance processes or human resources support during the shutdown.
Government officials have variously discussed thousands, to over 10,000 additional layoffs during the shutdown. HUD has already been hit with 2,300 layoffs this year, or a reduction of about 23%, according to the National Low Income Housing Coalition.
The specific impact of the cuts—both implemented and planned—are still not clear, though at HUD they appear to be focused on fair housing enforcement and affordable housing grants. Trump has said explicitly that layoffs are meant to target “Democrat agencies” during the shutdown.
Ethan Handelman, a former HUD and Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) official, wrote on LinkedIn that HUD has sought to fire the entire staff at the Real Estate Assessment Center (REAC).
“These are the inspectors HUD sends out when emergency inspections are needed or there is a quality control issue with the contractors who do the bulk of the inspections. In other words, the people who really know their stuff and can enforce HUD’s standards for safe, decent housing,” he wrote.
“I know from personal experience just how necessary REAC is, because I’ve seen the squalor that results when properties violate HUD’s standards,” Handelman added.
Also on the list are “essentially all” staff at Office of Housing Counseling, according to Handelman—people who train housing counselors that end up working for states or nonprofits to “help prevent foreclosures, help people get ready to become homeowners, and help people navigate getting mortgages.”
Bloomberg News reported that two regional HUD offices lost their entire fair housing offices, which were responsible for investigations and complaints across nine western and midwestern states.
Whether the reductions will actually be implemented is unclear. Because of Illston’s order, the administration cannot take “any action” related to the firings or implement new firings of employees who are part of the labor unions involved in the lawsuit—including the American Federation of Government Employees, the largest union representing HUD workers. At least some employees were notified that the effective date of the layoffs were Dec. 9, according to Bloomberg.
Over the summer, the Supreme Court overruled lower courts and allowed some agencies to move forward with firings while lawsuits play out.
