April 19, 2018

Duckworth Places Blanket Hold on HUD Nominees

 

[WASHINGTON, D.C.] – U.S. Senator Tammy Duckworth (D-IL) today placed a blanket hold on all Trump nominees for positions at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) after the agency failed to respond to her request  for detailed information regarding its decision to shutter two Alexander County Housing Authority (AHCA) facilities in Thebes, Illinois. Senators Duckworth and Dick Durbin (D-IL) sent the letter to HUD Secretary Ben Carson requesting a response no later than April 12, 2018. A week after that deadline, the Senators are still waiting.

“It is unacceptable for HUD to make yet another rash decision that uproots dozens of families from their homes without providing a detailed explanation, especially after Donald Trump promised throughout his campaign to help communities exactly like Cairo and Thebes,” Duckworth said. “The questions posed in that letter should have been answered long before choosing to close Mary Alice Meadows and Sunset Terrace, so what’s taking so long? As long as hundreds of Illinoisans’ lives are stuck in turmoil because of rash decisions that HUD fails to effectively or fully explain, I will object to every nominee Donald Trump sends our way.”

Senators Duckworth and Durbin’s letter came less than a year after HUD decided to close two additional AHCA facilities in Cairo, Illinois, without any clear plan to rehouse the hundreds of Illinoisans who would be displaced. HUD’s more recent decision in Thebes guts public housing and the local community and threatens to leave yet more Alexander County residents with limited options, and uncertainty about where and how they will live.

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