Senator Warren, Fair Housing Leaders Raise Concerns Over Craig Trainor’s Confirmation to Lead HUD’s Fair Housing Office

By Kayla Blackwell, NLIHC Housing Policy Analyst and San Kwon, NLIHC Policy Intern 

On Wednesday, October 8, the Senate confirmed Craig Trainor as Assistant Secretary for Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity (FHEO) at HUD. Trainor has previously served as acting assistant secretary for civil rights at the U.S. Department of Education.  

In a nomination hearing in June with the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs, Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) highlighted Trainor's troubling civil rights record. In his role at the Department of Education, he oversaw the Department’s efforts in repurposing its civil rights authorities to penalize schools supporting diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives and policies. In April, he was sued by the prominent civil rights group, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), for advancing a “legally flawed and unsupported interpretation” of the “Civil Rights Act of 1964” and the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution. 

Craig Trainor’s confirmation to lead FHEO comes amidst a recent whistleblower report alleging that HUD leadership is systematically undermining civil rights laws and fair housing protections (see Memo, 9/29). Following the whistleblower report, Palmer Heenan and Paul Osadebe, two HUD civil rights lawyers who spoke out about the Trump Administration’s efforts to limit enforcement of the “Fair Housing Act,” were fired (see Memo, 10/6).  

In response to the recent confirmation, Senator Warren and the National Fair Housing Alliance (NFHA) issued statements expressing deep concerns and calling for greater accountability at HUD. 

“Trainor’s confirmation comes just one week after the Trump Administration fired and suspended whistleblowers who shared documents with my office describing the Administration’s systematic attack on civil rights protections in housing in the office Trainor will now lead. Secretary Turner and Mr. Trainor must answer for the Administration’s attempt to dismantle civil rights protections in housing and abandon Americans facing housing discrimination,” wrote Senator Warren. 

“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,” wrote NFHA Executive Vice President Nikitra Bailey. “This Administration has already attacked fair housing enforcement in many ways, including eliminating much of the fair housing staff at FHEO and elsewhere in the government; trying to defund nonprofit, local fair housing organizations that make fair housing enforcement real for people seeking housing free of discrimination all over the country; announcing that it will not fully enforce the ‘Fair Housing Act’ and will ignore, for example, claims that banks are redlining neighborhoods; threatening to withhold federal funds from states and localities that offer greater fair housing protections than provided in federal law, such as for veterans and seniors; and firing whistleblowers who sought to expose their unlawful actions. HUD Secretary Turner committed to ‘upholding the fair housing laws’ during his confirmation hearing, but so far HUD has not kept that promise. We urge Congress to hold Assistant Secretary Trainor and Secretary Turner accountable for providing the protections that the ‘Fair Housing Act’ guarantees, and people desperately need in our current fair and affordable housing crisis.”  

Read Senator Warren’s statement here. 

Read NFHA’s statement here.