Housing and Urban Development Secretary Scott Turner specifically named Seattle as one of the cities where the Trump administration is scrutinizing the use of federal homelessness dollars as part of a nationwide crackdown on waste, fraud, abuse, and corruption.
Speaking to The Ari Hoffman Show on Talk Radio 570 KVI, Turner confirmed that the administration’s scrutiny of homelessness spending is not limited to Los Angeles, where HUD has already frozen funding to the region’s lead homelessness agency.
When asked directly whether HUD was looking at taking similar action in Seattle and other cities where billions have been spent as the homelessness crisis worsened, Turner responded, “Absolutely.”
“Not only in Seattle, but in LA, in Boston, in the Virgin Islands, in places around our country, it’s an above-all approach across all agencies, all cabinet members,” Turner said.
Turner said Vice President JD Vance has been tasked by President Donald Trump with leading the administration’s effort against government waste, fraud, and abuse.
“And I would add corruption,” Turner said. “And that’s what we were finding across the country. American taxpayer dollars that are hard-earned taxpayer dollars, there’s a lot of fraud and corruption.”
“We have been tasked to go after this waste, to go after fraud,” Turner added. “No longer will we turn a blind eye to corruption and fraud.”
The comments could have significant implications for Seattle and King County’s homelessness system, which has embraced Housing First and poured substantial public resources into housing and homelessness programs.
The Trump administration’s actions in California offer a preview of what that scrutiny could mean for Seattle. In June, Turner moved to freeze federal funding to the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority (LAHSA), the lead agency responsible for coordinating Los Angeles’ homelessness response. According to HUD, LAHSA has received more than $1 billion in taxpayer dollars since 2013, despite what the administration described as a record of mismanagement, fraud, and abuse. Turner said Los Angeles has received more federal homelessness funding than any other jurisdiction in the country, with HUD funding nearly tripling over the last decade while homelessness doubled.
Turner told KVI that federal officials found LAHSA could not account for 2,300 housing spaces for which it was responsible and lacked accountability measures to track people leaving taxpayer-funded hotel rooms. The crackdown is part of a broader shift by the Trump administration away from simply measuring how much homelessness funding is distributed and toward requiring recipients to demonstrate measurable results.
Turner and HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. have said organizations that fail to produce those results — or misuse taxpayer dollars — risk losing federal funding as the administration moves from the longstanding “Housing First” model toward its new “Treatment First” approach.
Turner also pointed to a conflict-of-interest issue involving a former LAHSA CEO and allegations involving Alexander Schufer, who was accused of stealing millions in HUD funds intended for homelessness services and using the money to finance a lavish lifestyle.
“The only thing abundant there was what he was receiving off the backs of taxpayers and not treating whom he was supposed to be treating,” Turner said, referring to Schufer’s organization, Abundant Blessing. “And that’s our homeless neighbors.”
The administration is also challenging one of the central philosophies behind homelessness policy in Seattle and other Democrat-run cities: Housing First.
“The housing first model is a failure,” Turner told KVI.
Turner said that when the Trump administration returned to HUD, officials decided they needed “a new play, a new playbook” that would address what he described as the root causes of homelessness rather than simply placing people into housing.
“We said we need a new play, a new playbook, a different way to approach our continuum of care and not just house people but literally get to the root problem of homelessness,” Turner said, pointing to drug addiction and mental illness.
The administration is replacing that philosophy with what it calls “Treatment First.”
HUD, HHS, and the White House recently released the Best Practices Toolkit: Addressing Homelessness and Addiction Through “Treatment First,” which argues that Housing First programs too often fail to integrate addiction treatment and recovery services with housing, resulting in fragmented care, relapse, and recurring homelessness.
Under the new approach, federal officials want homelessness programs judged by measurable outcomes such as sustained abstinence from drugs, improved mental health, stable housing, employment, and family and community reintegration rather than simply how much money is spent or how many services are provided.
“HUD is no longer going to fund or say success is how much money goes out the door, how many units of homeless are filled,” Turner told KVI. “Success is going to be how many people do we get treated and transformed to a life of self-sustainability.”
For Seattle officials and homelessness providers dependent on federal dollars, Turner’s message was clear: Los Angeles may be the beginning of the administration’s crackdown, not the end.
“Those that are committing crime and criminality against the American people, we’re coming after them,” Turner said, “to take care of the people that we’re supposed to be taking care of and to use these resources for their intended purpose.”