President-elect Donald Trump appointed Shawn Krause, Quicken Loans executive vice president, to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development transition team, according to an article by Nick Timiraos for The Wall Street Journal.
Krause was registered to lobby for Quicken Loans since 2009, however she deregistered a few weeks ago, according to the article.
From the article:
The Trump transition team ordered all lobbyists removed from its ranks two weeks ago to follow through on campaign pledges made by Mr. Trump to “drain the swamp” in Washington.
However, Quickens claims that Krause’s new role in the transition team didn’t pose any conflict of interests with the lender. In fact, the company’s CEO said Krause is a perfect fit for Trump’s team if he is looking to drain the swamp, according to the article.
From the article:
“It makes total sense you’d have someone like that. You’re finding people that actually understand housing,” said Bill Emerson, Quicken’s chief executive. “When you think about draining the swamp, this goes right in line with that.”
While Trump is getting his HUD transition team in place, the department’s secretary has yet to be officially named. Sources told HousingWire retired brain surgeon and former GOP candidate Ben Carson will accept the role, however he has yet to do so.
Sources confirmed he would make the announcement at the beginning of this week, but so far it has been silent. Perhaps he was waiting for the HUD transition team to be in place before announcing his acceptance?
Whatever the reason for Carson’s delay, companies are already urging the next HUD secretary, without regard to who it is, to bring change to affordable housing.
“During his acceptance speech, President-Elect Trump said that a top priority for his administration will be to invest in America’s infrastructure and inner cities as part of a ‘project of national growth and renewal,’” Terri Ludwig, Enterprise Community Partners president and CEO told HousingWire. “Investments in quality, affordable housing must be a part of that agenda.”
“Today more than one in four families who rent their homes – 11.4 million households in total – are ‘housing insecure,’ spending at least half of their monthly income on housing,” Ludwig said. “This unprecedented affordable housing crisis not only damages the health and economic prospects of millions of people in America, it’s also a drag on our country’s economic growth.”
“We urge the nominee, the new administration and Congress to take bold steps to address this worsening crisis,” she said.
What steps Carson takes after he accepts the nomination is not known, but here is a silver lining to his nomination, if you are questioning the pick.
