Ben Carson, the former neurosurgeon who at first declined to be nominated to President Trump’s cabinet due to a lack of experience, was confirmed to be the next Secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) on Thursday.
While every Republican present voted in favor of his confirmation, he also drew votes from six Democratic senators: Sherrod Brown (OH), Joe Donnelly (IN), Heidi Heitkamp (ND), Joe Manchin (WV), Jon Tester (MT), and Mark Warner (VA). Independent Angus King (ME) also voted to approve Carson.
Trump initially offered Carson the role of Secretary of Health and Human Services, but according to a close confidant, Carson declined because he has no prior government experience. “Dr. Carson feels he has no government experience, he’s never run a federal agency,” Armstrong Williams said at the time. “He’s never run an agency and it’s a lot to ask. He’s a neophyte and that’s not his strength.”
Carson also has no relevant experience with housing policy. While Trump surrogates at first defended the decision to nominate him as HUD Secretary by saying he had lived in public housing, Carson himself clarified that his mother worked to keep the family out of public housing while he was growing up.
Yet he has still expressed positions on the work that HUD does. As part of the Fair Housing Act of 1968, the agency is tasked with a mandate to “affirmatively further” fair housing for all. Carson has likened this mandate to “failed socialist experiments” and the policies of communist countries.
When he was asked on his position during his confirmation hearing, he told the Senators that he has no problem with racial integration, but, “I do have a problem with people on high dictating it when they don’t know about what’s going on in the area.”
This mandate had only recently been revived by the Obama administration. But it is meant to address the segregation and racism still present in the housing market. White families still largely live in communities that are segregated from black ones, and this feeds the racial wealth gap, given that the average black home’s value is around $75,000, while for a white home it’s $200,000.
Also at his confirmation hearing, he said that while HUD’s programs “are good programs,” he added, “In and of themselves, they’re not bringing about the elevation of large numbers of people.” In an interview following his nomination, he warned that people in poverty who use government programs, such as public housing, can become “dependent,” adding, “Government should not keep people in a dependent state. It should be used as a springboard and not as a hammock.”
He also called for a time limit on public housing at his hearing. “What I’m saying is that we have to be cognizant of our fiscal responsibilities as well as our social responsibilities. Would we love to put every single person in a beautiful unit forever? Absolutely,” he said. “But we don’t necessarily have the necessary funding.”
The data don’t show that people are lulled into dependency through public housing, however. The median length of stay is just 4.7 years, while the median person who receives a voucher to help cover rent only does so for 3.1 years.
Carson will also now be in charge of enforcing HUD’s Equal Access Rule that prohibits discrimination against LGBTQ people in publicly financed housing. While at his confirmation hearing he said he would “enforce the laws of the land,” in the past he characterized the right of trans people to use the bathroom matching their gender as “extra rights” that aren’t “fair” to everyone else. He repeated that characterization at his hearing.