The recent congressional hearing on the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s FY2027 budget was difficult to watch. Not because the questions were tough, but because the answers revealed a troubling absence of basic knowledge about who depends on federal housing programs and why those programs exist.
In an even stranger twist, HUD leadership seemed determined to make it harder for loan officers to reach more borrowers and close more loans during a time when the industry is sailing into economic headwinds we haven’t seen since 2008.
When HUD Secretary Scott Turner was asked how many beds of permanent supportive housing are funded through the Continuum of Care program, he didn’t know. When asked about the fastest-growing population experiencing homelessness, he didn’t know. When asked which communities would bear the greatest losses if CoC funding is eliminated, he didn’t know. These aren’t obscure statistics. These are the foundational facts of the job. And the answer, for the record, is 146,000 seniors currently experiencing homelessness, and rural and suburban communities where federal dollars fund more than half of all permanent supportive housing beds. In states like Oklahoma, federal funds cover 100% of those beds.
It matters that HUD leadership knows this. It matters because when they don’t understand who they’re serving, they can’t understand the consequences of what they’re cutting — and what parts of the mortgage industry they’re damaging.
“Equal Rights, Not Extra Rights,” And The Evasion Behind That Phrase
Perhaps the most telling exchange came when Secretary Turner offered the phrase “equal rights, not extra rights” as a guiding principle then refused, repeatedly and robotically, to explain who he believed was holding those so-called “extra rights.” Congressman Quigley pressed the question at least six times. The Secretary blatantly refused to answer.
That evasion has real-world consequences. It appears to be the same ideology now driving HUD’s proposed rollback of the Equal Access Rule — a proposal that would remove gender identity protections from nearly 50 federal housing regulations and allow emergency shelter providers to demand documentation to verify a person’s biological sex before granting them a bed. What direct advantage to American homebuyers or mortgage professionals does this proposed rule provide?
We are rapidly approaching a housing crisis of unprecedented proportions. The last thing any responsible housing policy leader should be doing right now is constructing new barriers to shelter for the most vulnerable people in America. Yet that is exactly what this proposed rule does. It will greatly expose transgender individuals — many of whom are already experiencing homelessness at disproportionate rates — to additional screening, humiliation, and potential denial of services at the very moments when they need help most.
I Have Seen This Before
I say that not abstractly, but from direct experience inside federal housing policy.
From 2018 to 2022, I served as Director of Government Affairs — and later Chief Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Officer — for CBC Mortgage Agency, the tribally owned entity behind the Chenoa Fund, one of the nation’s largest down payment assistance programs. During that tenure, I was part of the team that lobbied HUD directly to reverse Mortgagee Letter 2019-06, a policy that imposed unlawful jurisdictional restrictions on governmental entities providing down payment assistance, effectively threatening to shut down a program that was helping thousands of low-to-moderate income buyers achieve homeownership each year.
HUD claimed it was protecting taxpayers. It had no data to support that position. In fact, the data we presented showed that Chenoa Fund borrowers demonstrated a lower rate of default than other HUD programs nationally. The agency was making policy based on ideology, not evidence. And the people who would have paid the price were the first-generation and minority buyers we were serving.
We won. The mortgagee letter was withdrawn. U.S. District Judge David Nuffer issued a preliminary injunction. HUD acknowledged in a sworn declaration that it had no basis for the restrictions it had attempted to impose.
What I learned from that fight is that HUD, when it operates without accountability and without data, causes real harm to real people — and that harm flows directly downstream into the mortgage industry. Loan officers see it as their calls dry up. Lenders feel it in their falling volume. And the borrowers who were closest to the door of homeownership find themselves locked out again.
The proposed Equal Access Rule rollback follows the same pattern: a policy built on ideology rather than evidence, advanced without serious engagement with the communities it will harm, and dressed up in language designed to obscure what it actually does.
The Business Case Hiding In Plain Sight
There is another dimension to this proposed rule that the mortgage industry should be paying close attention to — and that is the direct impact on loan origination volume.
The LGBTQ+ population carries more than $1.7 trillion in spending power and represents a growing segment of potential homebuyers. Yet the homeownership rate among people who identify as LGBTQ+ is only 51%, compared to 71% for straight and cisgender people. For transgender individuals specifically, that number drops to 48%. That gap is not a reflection of financial capability, but rather a reflection of compounding barriers. Research from Iowa State University found that mortgage loan approval rates for same-sex couples were 3 to 8% lower than for heterosexual couples — and when approved, they paid more in interest and financing fees, despite research showing their loans actually perform better.
That is an underserved market of significant scale. But while loan officers and lenders should be trying to reach that market, federal policy is making it harder.
When HUD signals through proposed rulemaking that transgender individuals can be subjected to documentation demands and screening before accessing emergency shelter, it does not just harm those individuals in a moment of crisis. It sends a message to an entire community about whether the housing system, and the mortgage industry within it, is a space where they are welcome. Already, 67% of LGBTQ+ people surveyed have hidden, considered hiding, or were pressured to hide their identity while navigating the housing market, not by preference, but because the consequences of being open can include denial, worse terms, or outright discrimination.
Policy that deepens that fear does not expand the market. It shrinks it. At a moment when the mortgage industry is navigating a fluctuating economy and every qualified borrower matters, this proposed rule moves in exactly the wrong direction. And loan officers will feel it in their pipelines.
On “Housing First” And The Danger Of Sloganeering
Secretary Turner repeatedly referred to Housing First as a “failed model” during the hearing, an assertion that is a talking point, not a policy position. When Congresswoman DeLauro pushed back, asking how to house people when the funding is removed, he had no answer beyond the assertion that “we’ll be able to serve more people.”
The real-world data says otherwise. NIH research has shown that access to stable housing is directly associated with better health outcomes. For people living with HIV, 90 to 95% of those in HOPWA-funded supportive housing are meeting their medication goals — a number that falls to below half for those who are homeless. Housing isn’t a reward for getting well. It’s often the condition that makes getting well possible.
Eliminating or dramatically slashing HOPWA, as this budget proposes, isn’t a pivot to a better model. It’s an abandonment of people who are succeeding under the current one.
What We Should Be Talking About
My great-great-great-grandfather was born enslaved. He became one of the first Black homeowners in Hillsboro, North Carolina, and that single act of ownership changed the trajectory of every generation that followed him. Including mine.
That is what housing does. It doesn’t just put a roof over someone’s head. It builds wealth, creates stability, and brings a rooted foundation that lasts through generations.
That legacy is not extraordinary — or it shouldn’t be. It should be the expectation. And it can only be the expectation when federal housing policy is serious, informed, and expansive enough to meet people where they are, not where ideology says they should be.
What we watched this week was not serious housing policy. This is sloganeering and ideological point-scoring at the expense of real people who will be pushed even further to the margins. The consequences will ripple through our communities, our healthcare systems, and our economy.
The people served by these programs deserve a Secretary who knows their names, knows their numbers, and understands what is actually at stake.
