ProPublica is a nonprofit news company that investigates abuses of power. Sign up to receive the biggest stories as soon as they’re published.
As President Donald Trump’s nominee for secretary of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, Scott Turner may soon oversee U.S. efforts to build affordable apartments, protect poor tenants and assist the homeless. . As a member of the Texas House of Representatives, Turner voted against just these efforts.
Turner supported a bill that would ensure landlords could deny apartments to applicants because they received federal housing assistance. He opposed legislation to expand affordable rental housing. He voted against funding for public-private partnerships to assist with homelessness and against two bills dedicated to studying homelessness among youth and veterans.
Behind these votes is a deep-seated skepticism about the value of government efforts to alleviate poverty, a skepticism that Turner has expressed many times. He said welfare was “dangerous and harmful” and “one of the most destructive things to families.” One interviewer said that receiving government aid exposes recipients to a form of “bondage” that is “worse than slavery,” and Turner agreed.
Such views put Mr. Turner at first sight at odds with the core work of HUD, the vast federal agency that serves as a homelessness response for millions of the nation’s poor, elderly, and disabled people. It would seem that The department has an annual discretionary budget of $72 billion, provides rental assistance to 2 million households, oversees 800,000 public housing units, combats housing discrimination and racism, and supports the nation’s 650,000 homeless people. is provided. If Mr. Turner’s record is an indication of how he directs agency policy, researchers say those who have the most to lose are those clinging to the bottom of the housing market. advocates said.
“I don’t think this person is at all aligned with the values of what the agency should be about,” said Shea Weaver, director of the advocacy group Housing Justice for All. “This is a deregulatory agenda and an anti-poor agenda.”
Shamus Lawler, executive director of the National Housing Law Project, said homelessness could increase if Turner’s views were incorporated into policy. “If you believe, at a fundamental level, that people can get rent assistance when they are very poor and struggling, and you think that is actually dependent and a bad thing, then you are not willing to accept those programs. will try to undermine it,” he said. Said.
One former colleague offered a more optimistic view of Mr. Turner’s management of HUD. “My impression is that he’s going to try to help people,” said Democratic Texas Rep. Richard Peña Raymond, who served on the committee with Turner. “I’m sure he’ll do a good job.”
Mr. Turner did not respond to detailed questions. A spokesperson for the candidate said: “Naturally, ProPublica will seek to paint a negative image of Mr. Turner before he is given the opportunity to testify. We act solely as a voice for liberals.” I wouldn’t expect anything less from a publication that does.
Trump’s transition team and HUD did not respond to requests for comment. President Trump’s announcement of Turner’s nomination said he would serve as chair of the White House Council to Promote Opportunity Zones, a plan to encourage investment in low-income areas by providing generous tax breaks. “He helped lead an unprecedented effort to transform some of our most challenged communities.” During the first Trump administration. The announcement continued, “Under Scott’s leadership, Opportunity Zones have attracted more than $50 billion in private investment!”
Good journalism makes a difference.
Our nonprofit, independent newsroom has one job: to hold those in power accountable. Here’s how our research is driving real-world change.
We are trying something new. Was it helpful?
Turner is not the only Trump Cabinet nominee to express skepticism or outright hostility toward the work of any agency he might lead. But while other candidates have come under intense scrutiny in recent weeks, Turner has garnered little public attention and, as he wrote on Facebook last month, called for HUD to make “much-needed changes.” He has said little about his intentions, other than vowing to “bring about the future.” ProPublica examined Turner’s legislative record, his street speeches, podcast appearances and sermons at the megachurch he pastors in Plano, Texas, to compile his views on housing.
A possible HUD agenda for Mr. Turner can be seen in Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation’s recommendations for conservative presidential administrations. The report calls for, among other things, reducing funding for affordable housing, eliminating regulations that combat housing discrimination, increasing work requirements and adding deadlines for rental assistance, and repealing anti-homeless policies. The Project 2025 chapter on HUD is written by Ben Carson, who served as secretary of the department in the first Trump administration and was a mentor to Turner. As Secretary, Mr. Carson was involved in efforts to repeal anti-racism rules, add work requirements to housing assistance, and make it harder to prove housing discrimination.
Turner’s thinking seems deeply rooted in his upbringing in suburban Dallas, where, as he later said, he was “a young kid from a broken family who grew up poor.” His parents’ relationship was “filled with violence, domestic violence, abuse, and a lot of anger.” [and] alcohol. Years later, as a congressman, Turner said his sister “was on state aid and couldn’t be fed.” [Turner’s] Nephew when she was using drugs. ” (ProPublica could not find comments from Mr. Turner’s sister.)
Football turned out to be an escape. Turner played on scholarship at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, then went on to have a nearly 10-year career in the National Football League. He began his career in politics while at the League, interning with Republican California Congressman Duncan Hunter, who would be convicted a few years later of stealing from his campaign account. After running unsuccessfully for the California State Assembly in 2006, Turner returned to Texas and was elected to the state House of Representatives in 2012, serving for four years.
There, Mr. Turner established himself as an extremely conservative lawmaker who opposed much government intervention in the housing market, according to legislative records. He voted against supporting foreclosure prevention programs. He opposed a bill that would have helped public housing authorities replace and rehabilitate properties (although he voted in favor of a slight expansion of the bill two years later). He also called for mandatory drug testing for poor families applying for government aid, the Houston Chronicle reported at the time. Turner supported some modest housing support measures, including legislation to support senior housing development and legislation to require local low-income housing tax credits.
During his tenure, Turner was the lead author of 17 substantive bills. Nothing related to housing, and it never became a law.
“He’s a very nice guy,” said one former Texas Republican lawmaker, who requested anonymity to speak candidly about his former colleague. “He didn’t leave much of an impression on Congress.” “He didn’t leave a deep footprint.”
But that didn’t stop Mr. Turner from making a bold bid for the House speakership, a move that saw the West Texas pastor and oil billionaire use his wealth to push the state legislature far to the right. It is reported that Tim Dunn, the man who has led the way, is supporting it. Although Turner’s speaker campaign failed, it helped solidify his position within Texas’s deeply Christian political environment, where he has remained ever since.
Turner is the associate pastor of Prestonwood Baptist Church, a political powerhouse in Texas that counts many elected officials across the state among its congregation. Jack Graham, the church’s senior pastor, prayed for Trump at an event in October and praised Trump’s election victory from the pulpit in November. Mr. Turner’s skepticism about government aid is reflected in his sermon there, in which he describes the “perverse incentives created by government and the welfare system that have contributed to the prevalence of fatherlessness in our country.” “There is,” he said mockingly.
Campaign finance records show that Turner and his political staff also used campaign funds to support Wall Builders, an organization that aims to “uncover historical truths” about “the foundations of our nation’s Christianity.” Attended three conferences held by In 2016, Turner donated $10,000 to WallBuilders from his campaign account.
Turner’s far-right Christian allies include Ziklag, a secret network of ultra-wealthy Christian families and religious influencers who support Trump. As reported by ProPublica, Ziklag is making millions as part of a larger mission to help Christian leaders “dominate” key areas of American society, from education and business to media and government. Collected dollars. Ziklag spent millions of dollars this year mobilizing Republican-leaning voters in battleground states, even though it is a tax-exempt charity that is not allowed to interfere in politics. (A lawyer for Ziklag previously told ProPublica that the group does not endorse candidates for political office.)
In June 2019, Turner and his wife Robin attended a private Ziklag conference at the upscale Broadmoor resort in Colorado Springs, Colorado, according to photos of the event posted by attendees. At the time, Turner was working in the first Trump administration as executive director of the White House Council on Opportunity and Revitalization, where he was a public salesperson for the Opportunity Zones initiative. Turner praised the program as a way to improve areas with high poverty and unemployment rates. Previous reporting by ProPublica found the program was being abused by politically connected wealthy investors and came under intense scrutiny from members of Congress.
How billionaires avoided taxes on the wealthy
Internal documents obtained by ProPublica and Documented show that Ziklag members attempted to take advantage of the program. In May 2019, Ziklag said in one of its newsletters that members of the group met with three government officials about opportunity zones. “The administration has informed the group that it is listening and learning about the program,” the document says. “The Ziklagers are looking for additional avenues to influence future programs.”
After leaving the Trump administration, Turner launched a nonprofit organization that promotes “Christ-centered reading enrichment programs” for children and helps people get driver’s licenses. He also became the “chief vision officer” of multifamily developer JPI.
If approved, Mr. Turner will be in charge of an agency with approximately 10,000 employees at a critical time. “We’re facing a pretty bad housing crisis across the country,” said Lawler of the National Housing Law Project. HUD will be “integral to any effort” to solve it.
Jesse Coburn covers cities, housing and transportation for ProPublica. He is interested in how the second Trump administration reshapes federal policy in these areas, particularly the Department of Housing and Urban Development and the Department of Transportation. If you work for or are affected by the work of any of these agencies, he would like to hear from you. You can email him. [email protected]or contact him by phone, Signal, or WhatsApp at 917-239-6642. His mailing address is Jesse Coburn, ProPublica, 155 6th Avenue, 13th Floor, New York, NY 10013.
