Marcia Fudge, Biden’s housing secretary, is stepping down

Housing Secretary Marcia Fudge is stepping down next week, according to an email she wrote to staff on Monday.

Serving as HUD secretary “was the ideal opportunity to culminate a career focused on doing the most good for the most people, including those who have often been left behind or left out,” Fudge wrote. “With mixed emotions, I am announcing my retirement and resignation from the position of Secretary of HUD, effective March 22, 2024.”

Fudge’s retirement represents a surprising departure from President Joe Biden’s otherwise stable Cabinet just eight months before the election. It also comes just days after White House chief of staff Jeff Zients told POLITICO Playbook that the Cabinet has “people who are committed to this president.”

“So,” Zients added, “yes, we have the team in place.” 

Biden’s Cabinet has been remarkably stable. Fudge’s departure would mark only the second in the administration, following former Labor Secretary Marty Walsh leaving his post last year.

Eric Lander, director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy, a post that was recently elevated to Cabinet status, stepped down in 2022 amid reports of bullying staff.

In a statement, Biden praised Fudge’s “transformational leadership.”

“We have worked hard to lower housing costs and increase supply. We’ve proposed the largest investment in affordable housing in U.S. history. We’ve taken steps to aggressively combat racial discrimination in housing by ensuring home appraisals are more fair and by strengthening programs to redress the negative impacts of redlining,” he wrote. “Thanks to Secretary Fudge, we’ve helped first-time homebuyers, and we are working to cut the cost of renting. And there are more housing units under construction right now than at any time in the last 50 years.”

Deputy Secretary Adrianne Todman will serve as acting secretary, according to the White House.

White House spokesperson Olivia Dalton said “certainly” the president will nominate a replacement.

The struggle to confirm a successor to Walsh in the closely divided Senate could serve as a warning for the Biden administration. Acting Labor Secretary Julie Su has been serving indefinitely in her acting capacity since it became clear she couldn’t get support from all Senate Democrats and the independents who caucus with them.

Fudge told USA Today, which first reported the news, that she plans to retire from public office.

“Don’t look for me to ever be on another ballot or another appointee or anything like that,’’ she said. “I really do look forward to being a private citizen.”

Housing advocates praised Fudge’s tenure.

“Secretary Fudge consistently — and rightfully — says housing is a human right, and her actions at HUD have utilized all administrative levers to make it so,” said Diane Yentel, president and CEO of the National Low Income Housing Coalition.

“Her signature initiatives at HUD have been addressing homelessness, engaging with and supporting tenant leaders, and reducing the racial wealth gap in homeownership,” Yentel added. “On each initiative, she has left an indelible mark, moving our nation closer to achieving housing justice.”

The news of Fudge’s departure came as the White House released a budget request Monday full of housing funding, amid a historic shortage of affordable options.

The budget calls for an expansion of the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit, which facilitates the construction of affordable housing, and the establishment of a new Neighborhood Homes Tax Credit to spur the construction and preservation of affordable housing in distressed neighborhoods.

The White House is also proposing new tax credits to boost homeownership. A $10,000 mortgage relief credit for middle-class, first-time homebuyers, taken over two years, would help more than 3.5 million middle-class families purchase their first homes, according to the White House.

Fudge — who represented Ohio in Congress from 2008 until 2021, serving as chair of the Congressional Black Caucus for two of those years — took over a housing department hollowed out by years of cuts.

Before running for Congress in 2008 to fill the seat of her former boss and mentor, the late Stephanie Tubbs Jones, Fudge was mayor of Warrensville Heights, an Ohio city of about 13,000 people, for eight years.

Fudge had initially wanted to lead the Department of Agriculture. She lamented to POLITICO shortly after Biden’s election in 2020 that Black policymakers have traditionally been relegated to just a handful of Cabinet positions, including HUD secretary.

“As this country becomes more and more diverse, we’re going to have to stop looking at only certain agencies as those that people like me fit in. You know, it’s always, ‘we want to put the Black person in Labor or HUD,’” she said then.