Housing Secretary Marcia Fudge To Resign
After three years leading the Biden administration’s housing efforts, Marcia Fudge, secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development, is stepping down.
Fudge announced the resignation, which is to take effect March 22, on Monday, eight months before the 2024 presidential election. She was the first Black woman to lead the department in four decades.
“It has always been my belief that government can and should work for the people,” Fudge said in a statement. “For the last three years, I have fully embraced HUD's mission to create strong, sustainable, inclusive communities and quality affordable homes for all.”
She said it comes with “mixed emotions” that she is leaving. USA Today reported that Fudge was interested in spending more time with her family in Ohio. Her mother is turning 93 in April.
“It's time to go home,’’ Fudge told the publication. “I do believe strongly that I have done just about everything I could do at HUD for this administration as we go into this crazy, silly season of an election.”
Fudge is the second of the original 15 Biden administration cabinet secretaries to leave. Labor Secretary Marty Walsh departed in February 2023.
“On Day One, Marcia got to work rebuilding the Department of Housing and Urban Development, and over the past three years she has been a strong voice for expanding efforts to build generational wealth through homeownership and lowering costs and promoting fairness for America’s renters,” President Joe Biden said in a statement Monday.
He called out her efforts on increasing supply and reducing costs, as well as her work to expand affordable housing and combat racial discrimination in housing.
Over Fudge’s tenure, HUD has helped 1.8 million homebuyers purchase mortgages through the Federal Housing Administration, 1.5 million of whom were first-time buyers, awarded 120,000 new incremental housing vouchers and served or permanently housed 1.2 million people experiencing homelessness, the agency said in a January press release.
Prior to HUD, Fudge represented Ohio's 11th Congressional District from 2008 to 2021. Before that, she was the first female and the first Black mayor of Warrensville Heights, Ohio.
Fudge spoke on a HUD virtual town hall Friday. The department billed her remarks as a “special message” from the secretary.
“I knew that in a Biden-Harris administration, I could show people who grew up the way I did our country cares about them,” she said over the livestream. “Government can and should work for all its citizens, including for those most in need.”
Fudge is leaving as the Biden administration is pushing an array of policies aimed at generating more housing supply, including boosting the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit and creating funding for the production of more manufactured homes.
