Andrew Cuomo, Bill Clinton’s last HUD secretary, admitted in 1998 that HUD had been "the poster child for failed government." (AP Photo/Richard Drew, File)
During the 1990s, I spent many days at HUD headquarters investigating boondoggles. HUD was overstocked with the most depressed employees you would ever meet outside of a group therapy session in a city jail. After I wrote a Wall Street Journal piece headlined "Clinton’s Wrecking Ball for Suburbs," HUD Secretary Henry Cisneros denounced me for "unfortunate stereotyping of assisted-housing residents."
But not nearly as unfortunate as subsequent HUD-financed violent crime waves across the nation. In the first half of 2016, at least 30 people were killed at Section 8 residences in Chicago - along with 7,000 other reported crimes.
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In Houston, male Section 8 recipients are twice as likely to commit violent crimes as people with similar backgrounds and incomes who did not receive housing vouchers, according to a Texas A&M University study. A HUD-financed study found that Section 8 relocations "tripled the rate of arrests for property crimes" among boys who moved to new locales.
The Biden administration sought to "fix" that problem with a new mandate to punish mortgage borrowers with good credit ratings by forcing them to subsidize borrowers with shaky records of paying their bills. But "No Deadbeats Left Behind" is a poor maxim for mortgage policies.
Scott Turner appears before the Senate ahead of his confirmation vote to serve as HUD secretary. (Getty Images)
Secretary Turner is ready to abandon HUD headquarters, declaring that that agency’s focus is on "creating a workplace that reflects the values of efficiency, accountability and purpose." That 12-story building needs a half billion dollars in "deferred maintenance and modernization" expenses and costs more than $50 million a year to operate – despite being perennially half empty even before Trump’s mass firings. The maintenance and modernization costs far exceed the original cost of the building in inflation-adjusted dollars.
HUD’s faltering headquarters could be far more valuable for a symbolic gesture than for a real estate payout.
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A heavily publicized demolition of HUD headquarters would provide a more valuable lesson for Americans than any sale price the faltering building fetched. For 60 years, HUD reaped massive congressional appropriations regardless of the havoc it sowed. Razing HUD would remind all federal agencies that failure has consequences.
And seeing HUD headquarters topple down would gratify everyone who wants to drain the D.C. swamp and everyone whose home value or neighborhood was blighted by HUD.
