Who: Scott Turner
Nominated for: Secretary of Housing and Urban Development
You might know them from: Turner led a council that promoted investment and economic development in distressed communities during Trump's first term. He also spent nine seasons in the NFL and was twice elected as a Texas State Representative.
- Turner has worked on education at the America First Policy Institute, a Trump-allied think-tank
- He's recently been chief visionary officer at the multifamily housing developer JPI.
- Turner and his wife co-founded a faith-based nonprofit focused on economic opportunity.
- He's been an associate pastor at Prestonwood Baptist Church in Texas.
What does this role do: HUD manages rental assistance for millions of people who live in traditional public housing or have housing vouchers. The agency also helps low and moderate income families become homebuyers, builds and repairs affordable housing, provides funding to house homeless people, and enforces fair housing laws.
Turner said HUD is failing in a mission that's "personal" to him
Thursday's hearing before the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs was generally friendly, with lots of football jokes, playing off Turner's nine years in the NFL. Turner told senators he overcame extreme adversity growing up in Texas and that HUD's work focuses on "things that my family and I have experienced through the years." He said his wife grew up "on government assistance" and that at one point his family took in an uncle who had fallen into homelessness.
Turner said the housing crisis leaves people struggling every day, and he noted HUD's recent survey that found record high homelessness. "HUD, if you will, is failing at its most basic mission, and that has to come to an end," he said.
He offered few specifics to fix the agency, though, saying he would review every HUD program to see which ones work and which don't. He repeatedly said he'd try to streamline the agency to be more efficient.
Turner also said more HUD staff would need to return to work in-person at the office.
Most questions focused on how to make housing more affordable
Responding to senators' concerns, Turner said his own 24-year-old son has also worried that he'll never be able to afford a home. But he rejected the idea that more federal investment is needed to create more affordable housing.
"There's record funding from HUD," he said, "and we're still not meeting the need." Instead, he said the agency needs to "maximize the investment we have" and streamline programs. Specifically, he said the Section 8 voucher program needs to be less cumbersome and easier for landlords to use.
Turner also said burdensome regulations slow down construction and add to the cost of housing, and that he would work with states to ease their own rules. He noted the high cost of building materials is another problem but declined to weigh in on whether Trump should increase tariffs on Canadian lumber.
He punted when asked about Trump's proposals to cut HUD's budget
Several Democratic senators pressed Turner on Trump's proposals to dramatically cut HUD's budget during his first term. Congress rejected them, but anti-poverty advocates worry cuts could be more likely this time, with fewer Republican moderates in Congress and the incoming administration's focus on slashing spending.
Turner repeatedly declined to say whether he would push back against any specific cuts, and he said his goal would be to help people get off public assistance. But when pressed at one point, he said could imagine going to the president to make a case that, "Hey, these programs are successful."
Corporate landlords and homelessness
Turner declined to criticize the growing share of corporate investors in real estate and said bringing the private sector into the market is good.
He appeared to support a longtime federal homelessness policy many Republicans want to end. It provides housing first, and then it helps people with voluntary addiction or mental health treatment, called "wraparound services." When asked about the policy, Turner said that "those wraparound services are vital."
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