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Former NFL player Scott Turner was confirmed by the Senate Wednesday as President Trump’s head of the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD).
The upper chamber voted 55-44 to approve the former Washington Redskins and San Diego Chargers cornerback-turned-Dallas housing developer to Trump’s cabinet after he passed a committee vote along party lines last month.
Two Democrats, John Fetterman of Pennsylvania and Peter Welch of Vermont, voted to confirm Turner along with all 53 Senate Republicans. One Democrat, Angela Alsobrooks of Maryland, did not vote.
Turner will now oversee HUD’s $70 billion budget to enforce housing laws, manage programs to address housing needs, administer rental subsidies to lower-income families and handle housing discrimination cases.
In his announcement of the nom, Trump vowed Turner would be “helping to lead an Unprecedented Effort that Transformed our Country’s most distressed communities.”
“Solving the problems before our country requires grit and determination — whether as a young man, working as a dishwasher at the Spring Creek Barbeque [in Richardson, Texas] or the man who built a successful NFL career — Scott never let his circumstances define his capability to succeed,” Senate Banking Committee Chairman Tim Scott (R-SC) said last month.
Turner, who previously served on the Trump White House’s Opportunity and Revitalization Council from 2019 to 2021, will take charge of HUD amid a housing crisis that had been exacerbated by cumulative inflation during the Biden administration.
Since the COVID-19 pandemic in particular, interest rates, mortgages and home prices have all surged.
During Turner’s confirmation hearing, Scott pointed out that homelessness in the US had risen by at least 18% since 2020 and housing prices skyrocketed by 150% over the same period.
“Despite all the subsidies — and all of the trillions of dollars spent — not much has changed,” the Banking chairman said.
Trump, 78, had often blamed rising home prices on the influx of illegal migrants into the US, while his opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris, had claimed shortages were caused by “corporate landlords” buying up properties and hiking prices.
The once and future president had also promised to “eliminate regulations that drive up housing costs with the goal of cutting the cost of a new home in half.”
“We think we can do that. The regulations alone cost 30%. Regulation costs 30% of a new home,” Trump said last September in an address to the Economic Club of New York.
Harris had called for tax incentives and $25,000 handouts to first-time homeowners.
Turner promised in his confirmation hearing to slash regulations, drive down housing costs and reduce homelessness.
“There are many factors to why housing is so expensive now, and I believe first we have to get our fiscal house in order,” he told members of the Banking panel, suggesting that runaway federal spending had worsened the crisis.
He also said he would urge officials at HUD to lean on localities to re-evaluate zoning laws to make it easier for home builders.
Prior to joining the first Trump administration, Turner served in the Texas state legislature for four years, from 2013 to 2017. He retired from pro football in 2004 after suffering a leg injury in preseason training camp with the Denver Broncos.
