Ben Carson's HUD has offered increases, promotions to new employees with no housing policy experience

The United States Department of Housing and Urban Development granted promotions and salary increases to five political officers with no housing policy experience during the first months of work.

The increases, documented in a Washington Post analysis of HUD's political recruitments, resulted in annual salaries of $ 98,000 to $ 155,000 for the five appointees, all of whom participated in the Donald Trump or Ben Carson presidential campaigns. Three of them did not register a bachelor's degree in their curriculum vitae.

The political hiring involved at least 24 people with no obvious experience in housing policy, who were appointed to the highest paid political positions of HUD, an agency charged with serving the poorest Americans. They represent one-third of the top 70 HUD appointees in the federal government, with salaries in excess of $ 94,000, according to the agency's Post Office Review.

The agency's limited experience – HUD Carson, retired neurosurgeon secretary, has no previous housing, executive or government experience, said 16 current and former staff members careers.

"This administration is different because people coming in do not know about housing at all," said Ron Ashford, who retired in January after 22 years of experience as the director of public housing support programs in Canada. HUD. "As a result, they pursue initiatives that are not based on reality."

The Post completed its analysis of HUD appointees using government information on their salaries and positions until mid-March, obtained through a request for public documents from the Office of Personnel Management. The Post also reviewed the HUD documents – including official resumes, internal emails, salaries and job titles, and documentation of promotions and other job changes – obtained in mid-July by American Oversight, a monitoring group created last year to investigate the Trump administration, through several separate registration applications, as well as other publicly available information, such as LinkedIn profiles.

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Under the Obama administration, senior HUD policy makers were widely recognized housing experts, who were mobilized to stabilize the agency after the real estate market crash. Of a total of 66 highest-paid appointees, at least seven, or 11%, appear to have lacked housing experience, according to a Post study on the career path of people named in the 2012 Plum Book years.

Of the 24 Trump administration appointees who do not have any housing policy experience on their resume or LinkedIn profile, 16 reported working in the Carson or Trump presidential campaigns – or having personal ties with their families.

Among them, a former events manager, who became a senior HUD advisor, earned $ 131,767 after a 23% increase and a former real estate agent whose new job is to advise a HUD administrator, a long-time Trump assistant .

HUD spokesman Raffi Williams said in a statement to The Post that the appointment of people "with varied experiences in government is not unusual" and made the HUD a "more dynamic organization".

"This administration has brought together a high-level team at HUD with solid experience in housing, community development and mortgage financing. Any suggestion to the contrary opposes their public service to the American people, "said Williams. "HUD employees represent a wide range of contexts and experiences because different roles have unique responsibilities and require a variety of skill sets."

President Trump arrives in Reno, Nevada, with Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson in 2017. (Nicholas Kamm / AFP / Getty Images)

Brian Sullivan, another HUD spokesperson, said in a telephone conversation that politicians named "were changing all the time" and that at least 10 of the 70 highest-paid candidates included in Post's analysis had left the agency.

The Post exposed the scope of its analysis to the agency, which did not dispute the salaries and job titles of the people named in this story. HUD did not provide up-to-date salary information or answer questions regarding promotions and tasks of appointees.

Scott Keller, former chief of staff of Alphonso Jackson, secretary of HUD under President George W. Bush, also defended recruitments.

"Political staff members are not supposed to be experts on the subject in every case," said Keller, who had coached Carson in his confirmation hearings. "Their job is to keep the trains running at the hour. And they do not have to be housing policy experts to do that. "

According to former officials and other experts who work closely with the agency and HUD staff, most of them spoke on the condition that they were not identified because of the fear of retaliation or their current activity with HUD.

The plan was largely driven by Ben Hobbs, a special policy advisor in the HUD Public and Indian Housing Bureau, according to four people familiar with Hobbs' role. Hobbs has no experience as a decision maker but spent three months as a graduate researcher in "Social Studies" at the Heritage Foundation curatorial in 2016 and five months as a poverty consultant at the Libertarian Institute Charles Koch in 2013, according to his LinkedIn profile.

"As an ideologue, he wanted to establish his grand concept," said a former HUD official. "This policy was dead on arrival because it was misplaced."

Hobbs' experience has shown his inability to create support around politics in Congress or HUD, said the former head. Two other people with direct knowledge said that he had neglected to ensure the membership of career employees, although many had a long-standing goal of changing the structure of rents.

In June, even Carson seemed to give up the initiative, saying there was no longer a pressing need to increase rents after Congress reinstated Trump's proposed budget cuts.

Hobbs, who started at HUD for $ 79,720, left the agency in July after being promoted to Trump's internal policy board, according to his LinkedIn profile. Hobbs addressed all of Post's questions to HUD, who noted that he had also gained a three-month experience as a graduate member of the House Ways and Means Committee in 2016. The agency added that Hobbs, who School of Economics on his profile, wrote his thesis on the social safety net.

There have been other political failures that career staff members have found as a result of inexperienced leadership.

Carson's EnVision Centers initiative, which relies on non-profit foundations to help low-income families gain access to employment, education and health care, duplicates existing centers. proximity to public housing. These decades-old efforts have had limited success, lifting families out of poverty, a fact found by the foundation's representatives at a meeting with Carson.

"The problem is that they create a program without knowing the landscape," Ashford said. "They have not done the basic work and the investigations needed to take into account the failures or holes of the past."

HUD staff said Carson had failed to attract much financial support from the foundations or the White House, which provided only $ 2 million for this initiative. Nevertheless, Carson announced the launch of 18 such centers at a ceremony in June in his hometown of Detroit.

A slide of Carson-Trump's housing budget is posted at a hearing of the House Financial Services Committee in June, during which Ben Carson testified. (Al Drago / Bloomberg News)

The lack of experience in an understaffed agency even interrupted Carson's routine work during his first year of study, as none of the appointees felt at home.

"There is a huge learning curve that brings leadership to the point where they are ready to make a decision because they just do not understand the concepts," said a long-time member of his career under the guise of anonymity. .

"The assistant secretaries, along with the secretary, are supposed to be the ones who set the policy," said David Horne, former chief of staff of Steve Preston, the last secretary of Bush's HUD. "The fact that they have not been confirmed as easily as in the past has considerably paralyzed parts of the agency."

The White House said the agency was doing its job effectively. "Starting with Secretary Carson, the Trump administration has assembled an experienced and qualified team of leaders at HUD," said White House spokeswoman Lindsay Walters.

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Over the past year, the White House has appointed a number of senior officials with housing experience.

Pamela Patenaude, confirmed Assistant Secretary last September, spent more than two decades in housing policy and economic development and was Bush's Assistant Secretary for Community Planning and Development at HUD. She remains respected by career staff and housing advocates and, in many ways, she is the senior administrator of the agency.

Yet, in March, HUD sparked a public outcry over the leak of a proposal sent to politicians – but not career officials – to focus on the fight against discrimination in the statement. mission of the agency.

Patenaude then apologized to civil rights and consumer advocates at a forum hosted by the National Fair Housing Alliance, according to two people who participated in the April event at Marriott Marquis in Washington.

"She described it as an honest mistake that occurred while she was on vacation. She said it was not that pernicious, evil thing that HUD was trying to do, "one of the participants recalled. "She reiterated her personal goal of advancing fair housing."

Many of the Trump HUD appointees who do not have housing experience have titles such as "Special Assistant" or "Senior Advisor", often with relatively high paying positions that do not require public scrutiny.

"The American public has reasonable expectations that the people they pay for and serve them will be well qualified," said Max Stier, President and CEO of Partnership for Public Service, a non-partisan, non-partisan group. improved government performance with The Post on the monitoring of presidential appointments. "The administration should make known the people who occupy these political positions and what are their expectations of them."

Andrew Hughes, former director of plumbing and air conditioning, also worked as a special projects coordinator at the University of Texas. Washington lobbying shop.

Hughes, a campaign agent for Carson and Trump, cited Carson as a reference on his resume. HUD would not disclose his current salary, but he earned $ 155,000 last December as a deputy chief of staff, which represents a 14 per cent salary increase over his initial appointment to the White House. Hughes has not responded to several messages requesting requests for comments.

Keller, a former chief of staff to HUD Jackson's secretary, said Hughes' close ties with Carson, developed during his work on the campaign, make up for his lack of housing.

Mason Alexander, former event director, joined the HUD in January as a special assistant for $ 107,435 a year. A HUD staff member, who recently resigned, said Alexander had begun planning meetings, planning Carson's travel and listening tour. In September, he was promoted to Senior Adviser, without playing a political role, and received a 23% increase, raising his salary to $ 131,767.

Alexander's curriculum vitae states that he has a communications degree from Tallahassee Community College and professional experience in strategic planning. The summary indicated that Alexander had helped prepare the press gathering areas for the Trump campaign rallies.

Alexander has not responded to multiple attempts to reach him.

Barbara Gruson, a real estate agency and real estate manager in New York who organized awareness campaigns for the Trump campaign, started at HUD in January 2017 as a special public affairs assistant for a total of 90,350 dollars. She confirmed in a brief telephone call that she did not have a license. In May of the same year, she earned $ 97,869 as Regional Administrator Advisor Lynne Patton, a longtime Trump family member and consultant, who joined the HUD as a Senior Advisor.

Patton was then chosen to oversee the New York and New Jersey area, a position paying $ 160,000 a year. She dismissed criticisms of her lack of housing expertise, telling The Post last year that she was qualified for the job, given her years as a liaison with Trumps.

Patton said in a new statement that appointees, including Gruson, are now "fully competent in every area of ​​business". Mr. Gruson has "more than 20 years of multi-faceted real estate experience," said Patton. "The American people voted for a president and an administration that bring common sense and a keen business sense to Washington, DC."

Richard Youngblood, political consultant and former mortgage lender who organized the Ohio evangelistic campaign for the Trump campaign, began his career in January 2017 as a special assistant for $ 119,489. His resume does not mention a university degree. In August 2017, Youngblood was appointed Director of the HUD Center for Faith Based Partnerships and Neighborhood and received a 10% increase, raising her salary to $ 131,767. He said that he had been instructed not to comment.

Stephanie Holderfield, a real estate agent and policy consultant who worked on Carson and Trump's presidential campaigns, also started at HUD as a special assistant in the Community Planning and Development Office before being appointed Senior Advisor. at the Public and Indian Housing Bureau. . Her resume indicates that she hopes to graduate in December. She did not respond to requests for comment.

Patton testified that Holderfield's two decades of professional experience included two years as a member of the Champaign County Council, during which she told Patton that she had helped shape housing policy in Illinois and zoning orders.

The Trump administration has even filled a position of oversight of an Obama initiative that the current White House no longer seems to support, naming John Gibbs, a former conservative commentator and software developer with no previous experience in Housing, director of the Strong Cities and Strong Communities program last May. according to HUD and Office of Personnel Management records.

Janelle Joseph protests as Ben Carson visits the Liberty Square apartment complex in Miami in 2017. (Joe Raedle / Getty Images)

"It was an Obama program that had actually ended," said Danielle Arigoni, former director of the HUD Economic Development Bureau, who left the agency in September 2017.

The agency confirmed that Gibbs has never worked as director of this program.