David Dworkin, president and CEO of the National Housing Conference, said that “everyone is at risk if all [they] want to do is cut people.” He added that Musk’s and Ramaswamy’s recommendations for an end to remote work will lead some employees to leave altogether.
“The work-from-home opportunities have had a devastating impact on the economy of D.C. and have threatened its recovery and success. People have to come back to work,” Dworkin said. “If they want to improve efficiency and make the taxpayers’ dollar go further, there are going to be opportunities. And there will always be people that don’t want to be a part of that.”
Some departments, in Dworkin’s opinion, don’t have to worry about the potential impacts of DOGE’s ambitions to clean house.
“When it comes to the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), the most important thing to recognize is that they’re already woefully understaffed,” Dworkin said. “There are many opportunities for automation that would make it easier for the staff to do their jobs like the grant-making and monitoring process, HUD vouchers and FHA vouchers, and project execution.
“… Having someone come in from outside who can understand everything technology can do may be an opportunity to save money without threatening the current workforce.”
The most recent development for HUD was announced last week when Trump appointed Scott Turner, the former executive director of the The White House Opportunity and Revitalization Council, to serve as its next secretary.
Jung Choi, a principal research associate at Urban Institute, added to Dworkin’s sentiment. “HUD and Ginnie Mae are already pretty understaffed, so I don’t know if they further cut the people there. There might be further delays in implementing some of the programs, especially related to natural disasters,” she said.
Dworkin has a positive outlook on what Musk and Ramaswamy can bring to the table.
“Prior HUD secretaries had done a good job at improving HUD’s technology as much as they could, given the resources they had,“ he said. “So, I would encourage these two technology geniuses to look at the legacy systems of HUD and Ginnie Mae and ask how they can take this technology beyond the 21st century. I think people at HUD want those programs to work better, but they’re tied up in red tape that often predated them.
“What is often misunderstood as some deep state is often bureaucratic inefficiencies that can be improved significantly and would actually increase morale,“ Dworkin added. “When you look at Elon Musk, there are examples of horrific failures and incredible successes. And where he’s successful, he’s beyond anyone’s imagination. I’m happy to hear what he has to say about making government more efficient.”
Cave thinks it “may be speculation that there is antipathy or antagonism towards nonprofits” that is causing negative reactions to DOGE. He emphasized that nonprofits actually have an upper hand in this scenario.
“I feel confident that the track record alone of Enterprise (Community Partners) for 42 years makes a very strong statement that if you care about the high cost of housing for Americans, both renters and owners, we have something smart to say. So, come talk to us. I believe that is our credibility in speaking to how to reduce housing costs and increase supply, which I assume President Trump has said he really cares about and wants to solve.”
Choi noted that the Urban Institute is keeping an eye on how Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac could be affected by DOGE. “I mean, it wasn’t directly mentioned by Trump himself, but then [Mark] Calabria and other people did suggest that GSEs should be released from their conservatorship,” Choi said.
One concern Choi brought up was the state of the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) program under the new administration. LIHTC gives state and local allocating agencies “the equivalent of approximately $10 billion in annual budget authority to issue tax credits for the acquisition, rehabilitation, or new construction of rental housing targeted to lower-income households,” per HUD.
“I think people are thinking that LIHTC would survive and the vouchers would decline. Some researchers project that only 30% of the money spent on LIHTC is actually benefiting the renters, while the vouchers actually have a larger chunk of the share that directly supports the renters,,” Choi said.
“But then it does seem that LIHTC is going to be more in the favorable agenda for the Republicans also, so the LIHTC funding might stay the same or increase, but the voucher funding may decline. So, that’s our overall sense of the HUD programs that would be impacted.”
