In his recent address to the American people, President Donald Trump said, “Eleven months ago I inherited a mess. And I’m fixing it.”
When it comes to the border, Trump has inherited a catastrophe. Border security became a joke under the Biden administration, allowing millions of illegal aliens to rush into our country. This travesty not only made a mockery of our laws, but also increased the demand for affordable housing, which in turn increased housing costs for American families.
A recent report from the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) found that foreign-born immigrants are responsible for two-thirds of the growth in rental demand nationwide. In some places, like California and New York, migrant-driven rental demand had grown by 100%.
Scandalously, some illegal immigrants even received housing assistance from HUD, diverting taxpayer dollars to American citizens. Under Trump’s leadership, HUD is putting an end to this madness. We have barred illegal residents from receiving FHA-insured mortgages and announced a hotline to report illegal residents of HUD housing, along with other criminals, because public housing should be safe housing. We are taking decisive action to ensure that HUD-funded programs and resources do not benefit ineligible individuals or illegal aliens.
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HUD is moving forward to help homeowners and eliminate Biden-era regulations. (iStock)
The mess Trump is fixing goes beyond immigration, and over the past year HUD has won victory after victory to restore sanity and sanity to housing policy. We are putting the American dream of homeownership back within the reach of the American people by promoting deregulation, self-sufficiency and common sense.
We started by removing the Biden-era Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing (AFFH) rule. The Biden administration’s negligence in enforcing border security was matched only by its zeal in imposing burdensome regulations on innocent Americans, and the AFFH rule burdened America’s suburbs with red tape. Ending this arrangement was a crucial step in restoring freedom to local communities.
You cannot regulate your way to prosperity. But you can innovate.
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That’s one of America’s strengths, along with market-based solutions and private sector ingenuity. At Trump’s direction, we are recalibrating HUD away from overregulation and toward supporting these key tenets of our economy.
That’s why I’ve been a champion of Opportunity Zones for years. This groundbreaking policy has lifted more than 1 million Americans out of poverty. And Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act, the largest tax cut for working families in modern history, permanently expands opportunity zones. Opportunity Zones are now expected to support more than $100 billion in investments, create more than 1 million new jobs and facilitate the construction of hundreds of thousands of new homes.
I have personally been to 13 Opportunity Zones in Florida, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Georgia and other states, and I have witnessed how lives are transformed.
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I visited a vacant factory space in Green Bay, Wisconsin, which was being redeveloped into a mixed-use space with affordable housing and thriving businesses; a $5 billion project in Atlanta, Georgia, providing new housing and office space; and a factory that uses advanced methods to build modular homes in Columbus, Ohio. I’ve spoken with business owners, employees and residents who have seen their downtowns rejuvenated, and I’ve seen the new life infusing these places.
Of course, HUD still provides critical housing assistance, and the numbers prove it.
The mess Trump is fixing goes beyond immigration, and over the past year HUD has won victory after victory to restore sanity and sanity to housing policy.
This year, we helped more than 1 million Americans achieve the American dream of homeownership by insuring mortgages through HUD’s Federal Housing Administration. This complements the work of HUD’s Government National Mortgage Association, or Ginnie Mae, which provided critical liquidity for more than 430,000 Veterans Affairs loans.
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And to combat homelessness, we’ve welcomed more than 350,000 faith-based organizations back to the table as partners to provide care to the most vulnerable and help them achieve self-sufficiency rather than permanent dependence on government.
In addition to supporting homeownership, HUD also helps Americans whose homes have been damaged or destroyed by natural disasters. This year, we provided $12 billion in disaster recovery funds to communities affected by floods, storms and other catastrophes.
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I have personally visited California, North Carolina and my own beloved state of Texas to meet with survivors of wildfires, storms and floods, listen to their needs and see how HUD can help them recover from the wreckage.
But HUD cannot properly focus on such important work if our resources and energy are wasted promoting radical political ideology.
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That’s why our anti-wokeness campaign involved canceling $250 million in wasteful contracts and disbanding the PAVE task force, which disrupted housing markets to address so-called “systemic bias.” We also restored the safety of HUD shelters for vulnerable women by ending enforcement of a Biden-era rule that allowed men to raid these safe havens. Finally, in cities like Boston, we’ve held local leaders accountable and launched an investigation into illegal, race-based housing policies.
There is more for us to do next year and beyond, but our achievements in 2025 have laid a foundation for success that we will continue to build on. As we approach the 250th anniversary of our great nation, HUD will continue to protect and promote independence and self-sufficiency as the keys to the American dream of homeownership.
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