Seattle housing, homelessness crisis would grow if Trump cuts HUD
The Dept. of Housing and Urban Development may close its local office following layoffs and grant freezes. Advocates anticipate a ripple effect.
by Josh Cohen
March 14, 2025
Layoffs have begun and employees are scared at Seattle’s regional office of the U.S Department of Housing and Urban Development.
Some workers have started bringing personal items home from the office for fear that their badges may stop working without notice, according to one Seattle-based HUD employee who spoke to Cascade PBS on condition of anonymity for fear of retribution.
The angst comes amid reports that the Trump Administration and Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency want to cut HUD’s 9,600-person workforce by half and close many regional and field offices across the country.
Seattle’s office is one of 11 HUD regional facilities and serves Washington, Oregon, Idaho and Alaska. Bloomberg, The Washington Post and the Associated Press have all reported that HUD plans to close the Seattle office entirely and that its more than 100 workers will likely be laid off, along with about 50 based in Portland.
The agency also has smaller field offices in every state but is planning to close most of them, leaving field offices in just Alaska, North Carolina, Hawaii, Florida, California and Puerto Rico, according to Bloomberg News.
HUD is likely best known for its work on public housing, but the agency also oversees grants for affordable-housing construction and homelessness outreach, Section 8 housing vouchers, enforcement of antidiscrimination fair-housing laws, housing policy research and housing for Native American tribes.
HUD also manages the Federal Housing Administration, which insures private mortgage lending to help working-class Americans access home loans.
The Seattle HUD employee told Cascade PBS at least five probationary employees were laid off already along with seven people from the Field Policy Management program, which serves as the go between for HUD and local and state governments. The employee said several other staff in Seattle were told they must relocate to other offices to keep their jobs.
Perry Casper is Region 10 regional vice president with American Federation of Government Employees Council 222, the union that represents HUD workers. He said while some employees have been offered early retirement, many are not old enough to qualify at all or qualify for the full benefit.
“We have a lot of people that have kids in high school, junior high. They have homes, they have families,” Casper said. “People are just flat-out scared about getting another job in this economy that’s not producing enough jobs now.”
He continued, “[Employees] deserve a lot of credit for continuing to help others in the midst of their own fears and concerns. Readers should know just how dedicated people have been to keep up the work when their own lives have been disrupted so badly.”
Kasey Lovett, HUD’s head of public affairs, wrote in an email that no decisions have been finalized about office closures: “We understand the important role of field offices in carrying out HUD’s mission. The department is exploring consolidation while continuing to prioritize service.”
Local impacts
The potential closure of the Seattle regional office and broader cuts at HUD have local housing and homelessness advocates scared.
“I can say with confidence that none of this is about efficiency,” said Alison Eisinger, Seattle/King County Coalition on Homelessness executive director. “None of this is about housing Americans. None of this is about ensuring that the federal government does its part to end homelessness. This is all about destroying the infrastructure that provides benefit and service to the American people.”
Some Seattle-area affordable-housing and community development nonprofits are already feeling the pinch from frozen HUD funds. HUD’s Section 4 grant program is meant to help small nonprofits expand their capacity to build affordable housing or do economic development work that benefits low-income residents.
The money is used for things like helping a small affordable-housing developer get through the environmental review and permitting process, hire a site surveyor or get legal assistance on a project.
Section 4 grants get distributed through intermediary nonprofits including Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC) and Enterprise Community Partners. Section 4 uses reimbursable grants, meaning nonprofits that receive funds must submit receipts to the intermediary for reimbursement. In February, LISC and Enterprise learned their Section 4 grants were being terminated. Nationwide at least $60 million in Section 4 grants have been frozen, the Associate Press reported.
Lauren McGowan, LISC Puget Sound’s executive director, said the organization had about $225,000 in contracts committed to Seattle-area nonprofits that it can no longer pay, and another $380,000 that were awarded but not yet under contract. LISC’s local awardees include the YWCA, the Financial Empowerment Network, Urban League, United Way Pierce County and Workforce Snohomish, most of which were using the funds for jobs training and economic development projects.
According to an Enterprise spokesperson, four nonprofits in Washington were expecting about $154,000 in Section 4 reimbursements that the organization may not be able to pay. Enterprise was also about to announce another $890,000 in grants for Washington and Oregon that have been cancelled.
The Associated Press reported that HUD is also halting a $1 billion program that helps preserve aging affordable-housing projects that are in need of repairs and upgrades.
“We’re deeply concerned about the overall affordable-housing system,” LISC’s McGowan said. She argued there could be a ripple effect if things like Section 8 housing vouchers and food-assistance benefits get cut until people can’t keep up with their rent. That would, in turn, strain affordable-housing providers, who will almost certainly be getting less federal financial support in the coming years. If they go bankrupt and close their doors, their tenants would likely end up homeless.
Dan Malone echoed McGowan’s fears about the impacts of layoffs and deep funding cuts at HUD. Malone is executive director at Seattle’s Downtown Emergency Service Center (DESC), a homelessness services and permanent supportive housing provider.
“The housing crisis would get even worse,” Malone said. “State and local governments are not going to have enough of their own resources to backfill any federal funding cuts. And even if the federal money technically isn’t cut, not having the ability to process the money because they don’t have enough staff will have the same effect.”
Malone said DESC’s funding hasn’t yet been impacted by the new administration, but he and other housing providers are watching closely to see what happens with $67 million in HUD Continuum of Care program funding that’s been awarded to housing and services providers in King County but not yet disbursed by HUD.
Continuum of Care money funds organizations working on homelessness issues and providing housing for the region’s lowest income residents. Losing it would result in “many more desperate folks on the streets,” Malone said.
The King County Regional Homelessness Authority (KCRHA) is the intermediary agency that distributes Continuum of Care money. Lisa Edge, KCRHA chief of external affairs, confirmed that the agency is still waiting for FY2024 Continuum of Care funding but that it’s typical for HUD to take months to disburse grants so it’s “too soon to say” if the money is at risk.
“This is an evolving situation involving numerous challenges,” wrote Edge in an email. “We’re focused on continuing the important work of addressing homelessness in the region while supporting service providers and the staff during this turbulent time.”
Asked about the potential impact on affordable housing and homelessness, HUD spokesperson Lovett wrote: “HUD is following direction from the administration while also ensuring the department continues to deliver on its critical functions, mission to serve rural, tribal and urban communities and statutory responsibilities.”
Democrats push back
U.S. Sen. Patty Murray from Washington has joined several other Democratic leaders in urging HUD Secretary Scott Turner to not go through with the planned cuts. In a letter to Turner signed by Murray and Senators Elizabeth Warren, Kirsten Gillibrand, Tina Smith and Chuck Schumer, the officials said frozen funds and a gutted HUD workforce will make the country’s housing crisis worse.
“It’s frankly unbelievable that the Trump administration is even considering shuttering HUD’s Region 10 office in Seattle,” said Murray in a statement to Cascade PBS.
She continued, “This could cause widespread uncertainty in our state’s housing market and make it harder for organizations to close deals and get the financing they need to build more affordable housing. And it is just another example of Trump and Elon creating new problems and ripping the rug out from under people instead of doing a single thing to lower the cost of housing as the affordable housing crisis grows increasingly dire in Washington state.”
Murray’s office said they have not received a response from Turner about the senators’ letter.
Trump is not the first Republican president to go after HUD. During Ronald Reagan’s administration, the agency’s budget was cut from $33.4 billion in 1981 to $14.2 billion in 1987. In that same period, the number of employees dropped from 16,343 to 11,470, according to a 1989 report from The Washington Post.
Murray’s letter to Turner said that between 2012 and 2019, HUD’s staffing levels fell by more than 20% and the department had just started to rebuild its workforce.
“The work doesn’t go away. It just increases,” said Casper, the HUD union rep, who experienced the loss of thousands more employees during his more than 30 years working at the agency.
If the cuts and office closures go ahead as reported, he said everyone from the Dakotas to the Pacific Northwest will be served by the regional HUD office in Denver.
“The distances are so much more vast,” Casper said. “Then you cut travel and in-person contact … it’s not going to be the same relationship. They’re creating a situation where all you are is big government that’s far away. You’re not creating a government that’s able to deal with issues when they arise.”
On Thursday, a federal judge ordered the Trump administration to rehire thousands of probationary employees who had been unlawfully terminated. The order extends to the Departments of Veterans Affairs, Agriculture, Defense, Energy, Interior and Treasury.
The order did not apply to HUD employees, but the judge said he may extend the injunction to other agencies in the future, according to reporting by Government Executive.
Correction: A previous version of this article misstated how much Enterprise planned to award in its next round of Section 4 grants.