DOGE eyes cuts, NeighborWorks pushes back

Neighborworks America is defending its work supporting affordable housing efforts amid reports the Trump administration's cost-cutting task force is eying the organization.

The Department of Government Efficiency met with Neighborworks last week and asked that one of its operatives be embedded in the nonprofit, according to a report from Politico. The National Housing Conference last week also warned of DOGE targeting the congressionally chartered nonprofit, which supports a network of around 250 local housing organizations. 

HousingWire first reported the NHC's bulletin. The coalition could not specify DOGE's goals nor timeline at Neighborworks. 

In a statement Monday, Neighborworks said itself and its network of local nonprofits have been "prudent and efficient stewards of federal dollars." In fiscal year 2024, the Neighborworks network attracted $71 of public and private capital for affordable housing work for every $1 of federal investment. 

"NeighborWorks America is aligned with the administration's housing goals," the statement read. "Like the administration, we believe in the efficient delivery of financial resources and technical expertise that sustains and builds affordable housing supply."

The statement didn't mention DOGE, and a spokesperson Monday did not respond to follow-up questions. In a separate press release last week, Neighborworks said it was aligned with President Trump's executive order to lower the cost of housing and expand supply. 

While the administration has pledged to address extreme unaffordability in the housing market, it's also made cuts to federal housing operations at the Department of Housing and Urban Development and the Department of Veterans Affairs. HUD is allegedly mulling layoffs to staff including fair housing enforcement workers.

President Trump's back-and-forth decrees on international tariffs have also contributed to rising mortgage rates in recent weeks.

What does Neighborworks do?

The decades-old Neighborworks nonprofit provides grants, training and technical assistance to its local organizations nationwide, including a downpayment assistance program. Among other figures, Neighborworks says it helped 12,269 new homeowners last year and provided funds including lending for 12,844 homeowners to rehabilitate their properties. 

The organization via its network owns or manages 211,856 rental homes, and claims to have created or maintained 48,885 full-time jobs. Congress appropriated $158 million to Neighborworks in fiscal year 2024, which according to lawmakers was a $12 million decrease from the prior year. 

Although it receives federal funds, Neighborworks is not a federal agency, and its workers are not federal employees. Its board of directors does include financial regulators and currently lists Grovetta Gardineer, an official with the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency; and Travis Hill, the acting chairman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. 

A Republican-led House of Representatives in 2011 previously mulled cutting all federal funding for Neighborworks, then suggesting its work was duplicative of HUD operations. 

HUD downsizing its office space

Trump's housing regulators have made changes in line with the administration's broader effort to rid the government of excessive fraud, waste, and abuse, including downsizing physical offices. HUD and the General Services Administration last week said the department's headquarters since 1968, the Robert C. Weaver Federal Building in Washington, D.C., was added to the GSA's "accelerated disposition list."

The building costs taxpayers $56 million annually in rent and expenditures, and faces over $500 million in deferred maintenance and modernization costs, the government said. HUD staff also occupy just half of the building. Turner in an interview with Fox News last month said he was displeased with attitudes that HUD's Brutalist building was "the ugliest building in D.C."

DOGE has claimed it saved taxpayers $5.6 million by ending leases for over a dozen Rural Housing Service and HUD offices nationwide.