The National Fair Housing Alliance and a top Democrat are criticizing the new leader of a federal fair housing office over his alleged troubling record regarding civil rights.
Craig Trainor was confirmed Wednesday as the assistant secretary for the Office of Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity at the Department of Housing and Urban Development. Senators confirmed Trainor and over 100 other Trump administration nominees in a partisan line vote conducted despite the government shutdown.
Republicans of the Senate Banking Committee congratulated Trainor, stating he’ll head HUD’s efforts to “ensure that all Americans have access to housing nationwide.” The Department, whose website still touts a controversial shutdown message, said it was working on a comment Thursday afternoon with its public affairs office operating in a limited capacity.
Trainor comes from the Department of Education, where his actions as the acting assistant secretary for civil rights, particularly regarding a decree regarding diversity, equity, and inclusion, have drawn scrutiny.
Before Trainor’s arrival, the FHEO last month realigned its enforcement priorities, with HUD erasing many Biden and Obama-era guidelines. The office has also apparently reduced its staff by hundreds of employees this year, according to federal documents.
Criticism echoes larger complaints about Trump administration
The new fair housing boss is a licensed attorney and GOP official, having worked at the America First Policy Institute under then-Florida attorney general Pam Bondi. In February Trainor penned a “Dear Colleague” letter suggesting the withholding of funding for institutions over their diversity, equity and inclusion practices.
The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People sued the DOE and Trainor over that decree, and a federal court in April prevented the department from enforcing the letter. The National Fair Housing Alliance in a statement Wednesday accused Trainor of weaponizing the DOE’s civil rights authorities.
“It is deeply concerning that the Senate confirmed Craig Trainor to be the administration’s top fair housing official without even holding an individualized vote, much less scrutinizing his troubling record,” said NFHA Executive Vice President Nikitra Bailey in a press release.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., the ranking member of the Senate Banking Committee, in a statement said HUD Secretary Scott Turner and Trainor must answer for the administration’s “attempts to dismantle civil rights protection in housing.”
The NFHA claimed HUD announced it would not fully enforce the Fair Housing Act. In a memo September 16 by a FHEO official the regulator reiterated its enforcement efforts, but removed 21 guidance issuances from 2009 to 2023. The memo suggested Democrat administrations prioritized “novel and tenuous” theories of discrimination on topics like appraisal bias.
The fair housing group also accused the administration of eliminating “much” of the staff at FHEO. A recent Politico report pointed to a recent HUD shutdown plan indicating 315 full-time employees at the office, down from the 572 described in a 2023 plan.
Another archived HUD document states there were 647 full-time employees at FHEO in 2024. HUD has not publicly confirmed whether it’s laid off swaths of employees as other areas of the administration have planned. The Department of Government Efficiency earlier this year touted widespread terminations of vendor contracts at the regulator.
