Nearly 500 employees at the Department of Housing and Urban Development received notice last week that they will be laid off effective December, according to multiple media reports. The move appears to align with earlier Trump administration statements indicating federal workers would face terminations during the ongoing government shutdown.
In a memo released September 24, the Office of Management and Budget instructed federal agencies to initiate reduction-in-force procedures if a shutdown occurred. The reported termination of approximately 4,000 federal employees began on Friday. Meanwhile, hundreds of thousands of government workers have been furloughed since October 1 due to the shutdown.
At HUD, the largest cuts are centered in the Office of Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity, which handles investigations into discrimination and civil rights violations. According to Bloomberg, nearly 100 equal opportunity specialists received layoff notices, affecting field offices in cities including Atlanta, Baltimore, Boston, Denver, Fort Worth, Miami, New Orleans and Philadelphia.
“HUD is implementing a reduction in force to align our programs with the administration’s priorities and the appropriations available to the department,” HUD said in a statement.
Critics of the Trump administration’s housing policies argue that the layoffs, along with recent policy changes, are undermining HUD’s ability to fulfill its legal responsibilities. Staff reductions and narrowed enforcement guidelines limit the agency’s capacity to investigate housing discrimination and uphold civil rights protections, they say.
In recent guidance, HUD stated that it will de-prioritize complaints involving policies that are not explicitly discriminatory but still result in harm to protected groups. For example, the agency has signaled it will no longer prioritize cases involving redlining — a practice in which lenders deny mortgages to entire neighborhoods, often disproportionately impacting communities of color.
Other HUD divisions affected by the layoffs include Public and Indian Housing and the Office of Community Planning and Development.
Some HUD staffers are hopeful that the layoff notices are being used as a negotiating tactic, noting that similar reduction-in-force warnings were issued in March but ultimately not carried out. However, since January, over 2,300 employees—roughly a quarter of HUD’s total workforce—have left the agency voluntarily.
Other federal agencies receiving layoff notices include the Departments of Treasury, Health and Human Services, Education and the Environmental Protection Agency.
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