Onerous government regulation is retarding the solving of America’s current affordability crisis, a Trump administration official emphasized on Fox News.
The Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) under Secretary Scott Turner is trying to reverse unnecessary and burdensome federal regulation, while empowering local governments to do more as well. Instead of being the solution to the housing crisis, government is often part of or the main source of the problem. By rolling back regulatory restrictions, however, governments can allow an increase in building.
The Trump administration doesn’t sit back and admire a problem — we roll up our sleeves and get to work.
Tackling the affordability crisis left by the Biden administration will take bold solutions, but we are up for the job. pic.twitter.com/nVQtQckX6d
— Scott Turner (@SecretaryTurner) November 22, 2025
That is not to say that HUD is not working for particular policies and programs that can stimulate building. Turner presented a picture both of proactive planning in some cases and a drawing back from overreaching regulation in other cases.
Speaking on Fox, Turner said, “President Trump not only is a strategist, but he executes on ideas. And so right now, there’s many ideas, a myriad of ideas, on the table as it pertains to housing affordability and helping first time home buyers in America.”
He continued, “I hear it. You hear it. Gen Z, millennials, and others [ask] ‘how we’re going to be able to afford a home.’ And so not only do we understand it, but you have people — leadership in this country getting together, getting stakeholders together, industry experts, to see what is the best, feasible and appropriate path that we can take to open up building in our country.”
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Besides searching for proactive solutions, HUD is also pulling back on the damaging regulations that helped create the housing crisis to begin with. Turner explained that the “regulatory environment is burdensome in our country, and so at HUD, we’ve taken down burdensome regulation [such as] Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing, which made HUD a national zoning board, restoring local control back to the cities, back to the states, back to the localities.”
The Founding Fathers believed in the principle of subsidiarity and in putting careful restrictions on the federal government, while local governments perform many functions more efficiently. Unfortunately, America long ago stopped operating on that principle, but the Trump administration is bucking the trend. When possible, the administration wants to empower state and local authorities to get the job done and focus on solutions specific to their areas.
Turner explained, “We’re encouraging every locality ‘take inventory of your regulatory environment to see how you can unleash building and development in your said community.’ And so these ideas taken down the regulatory environment, public-private partnerships are all part of the plan.”
One hopes that this will soon result in significant changes for the better across America in relation to the housing crisis.
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