The Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) headquarters has been added to the “accelerated disposition list in order to engage the market” and explore relocation options.
The agency and the General Services Administration (GSA) announced the action April 17.
Adding HUD’s Washington, D.C., headquarters to the disposition list “will allow the GSA to more effectively rightsize the federal real estate portfolio to reduce the burden on the American taxpayer while also delivering space that enables HUD to achieve its mission,” said HUD in a press release.
The building, which opened in 1968, faces over $500 million in deferred maintenance and modernization needs and costs the American taxpayer more than $56 million in yearly rent and operations expenditures. In addition, with every member of HUD staff at its headquarters, it is at half of its total occupancy, according to HUD.
The move comes as the Trump administration and its new Department of Government Efficiency look to cut federal government.
Several senators, a leader at the American Federation of Government Employees National Council 222 of HUD Locals, and others have recently raised concerns about potential mass firings at the housing agency along with the closing of several HUD field offices.
In addition, CityLab on April 16 reported that “all 13 employees of the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness, or USICH, received notice from the agency’s acting director on Tuesday informing them that they were being put on administrative leave.”
