Trump Selects Former Nfl Player Scott Turner To Lead Housing Agency

President-elect Donald Trump selected motivational speaker Scott Turner of the America First Policy Institute to lead the Department of Housing and Urban Development, offering him a pivotal role in an area that has become one of Americans' biggest concerns.

Turner, a former professional football player who chairs the Center for Education Opportunity at the Trump-allied think tank, served as executive director of the White House Opportunity and Revitalization Council. The council is an interagency effort to advance so-called opportunity zones, a program started under Trump's 2017 tax law.

"Under Scott’s leadership, Opportunity Zones received over $50 Billion Dollars in Private Investment!” Trump said in a statement Friday night announcing the pick. “Scott will work alongside me to Make America Great Again for EVERY American.”

Turner served in the Texas House of Representatives from 2013 to 2017.

If confirmed, he would run a department with a $70 billion budget and roughly 8,000 employees at a time when housing has risen to the forefront politically after costs soared in the wake of the pandemic.

As HUD chief, he would likely seek to slash the department’s funding, reverse Biden-era fair housing policies and overhaul homelessness programs, all goals laid out by the Trump campaign.

While Turner's views on housing issues aren't clear, the AFPI agenda calls for “addressing the root causes of homelessness” rather than pursuing the “housing first” approach that Democrats favor.

“An America First solution requires addressing the mental health and substance abuse crises contributing to the homelessness crisis, empowering law enforcement to act in defense of their communities and public spaces, and deregulating local housing markets,” the group states on its website.

The HUD section of Project 2025 — a separate blueprint for the new administration drawn up by the right-leaning Heritage Foundation — proposed prioritizing housing assistance vouchers for “two-parent households.” It also called for doing away with the Housing Trust Fund, which provides grants to states to house low-income people, and cutting aid to mixed-status households that include an undocumented immigrant.

Turner played in the NFL for nine seasons with the then-Washington Redskins, the San Diego Chargers and the Denver Broncos.

His selection was met with some befuddlement in the housing industry, as lobbyists scrambled to learn about him.

But David Dworkin, president and CEO of the National Housing Conference, a coalition of industry stakeholders, praised the choice.

Turner “has a well-established commitment to community development and was a vocal advocate for investing in underserved communities in the first Trump administration,” Dworkin said. “We look forward to working with him in the years ahead.”