As a Jewish organization grounded in racial and economic justice, we are most troubled by Dr. Carson’s past statement that fair housing amounted to “mandated social-engineering!what you see in communist countries.” In fact, over the last century, racist and ill-conceived housing policies have blocked people of color and people in poverty from accessing good schools and jobs by locking them out of their neighborhoods of choice. In recent decades, policies such as the Fair Housing Act (1968), the Community Reinvestment Act (1977), and President Obama’s Fair Housing Rules have aimed to address the pernicious effects of racist redlining, predatory lending, and other discriminatory practices that Dr. Carson appears not to understand.
We are also deeply concerned about Dr. Carson’s qualifications for running HUD, a $48-billion agency that provides critical aid to millions of Americans. Dr. Carson himself declared that he was ill-equipped to run a government bureaucracy, telling the Washington Post that he would be “like a fish out of water” in the cabinet. Since his nomination, Carson has downplayed the expertise needed to run HUD, saying “in terms of complexity, I can guarantee you that very little of it comes very close to neurosurgery…these things can easily be acquired.” We are troubled by this lack of humility and seeming disinterest in the intricacies of running such a large and complex organization.
At a time when homelessness is growing in our biggest cities, when rocketing housing costs and displacement are plaguing communities of color, and when obtaining a home loan from a bank continues to be demonstrably more difficult for a person of color than a white person, we join the many voices who believe we cannot afford a HUD secretary with such naive views on housing.
Bend the Arc’s Southern California Advocacy Committee has been a leader in organizing around issues of homelessness and housing in Los Angeles, including supporting two ballot measures this cycle and focusing on ongoing legislative strategies to support permanent funding streams for affordable housing production.
