It turns out that hiring your family’s event planner and/or Vice President of the Eric Trump Foundation for a high-level spot in the government's Housing and Urban Development agency may not lead to competent government decision-making.
Lynne Patton, a former event planner for the Trump family whose nomination to a HUD position drew criticism from policy experts and housing advocates last month, reversed HUD’s position on Westchester’s zoning laws on Tuesday. The agency had rejected 10 previous versions of the county’s “Analysis of Impediments,” a document which HUD grantees must submit to demonstrate their use of taxpayer money will not get spent into systems that tacitly reinforce racial segregation in housing.
Westchester’s fight with HUD originated from a lawsuit brought by the Anti-Discrimination Center. The county struck a settlement with HUD in 2009, but has failed to comply fully with it for close to a decade.
Despite being once again rejected just last April, Westchester County, New York, was able to finally skirt the HUD regulations requiring the county to demonstrate HUD funds would not be used for projects that encourage segregation with a devious plan indeed:
Westchester waited a few weeks once Patton was put in charge of the HUD office with jurisdiction over the county. Then, officials resubmitted the same analysis that was insufficient in April. Patton accepted the same figures her predecessors had rejected.
Patton has never worked in housing policy decision-making in her life, up until Trump put her in charge of these things. Coincidentally, resubmitting the same report that prior experts had rejected as insufficient turned out to be just fine when she thumbed through it.
Conveniently for the Trump family, however, weakening oversight of HUD programs will likely benefit them financially; the Trump Organization is co-owner of the largest federally subsidized housing complex in the nation, in Brooklyn, and relaxation of anti-discrimination regulations for that and similar New York properties will be a boon to landlords who want to continue to pocket federal cash but don’t want to be bothered with federal restrictions on who can get it.