Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Ben Carson was in Detroit yesterday, visiting one of the cabinet agency’s field offices, and visiting a local restaurant funded by the Motor City Match program, which as CNBC reported, “pairs businesses in Detroit with available real estate options” and “helps businesses locate and thrive in Detroit by providing competitive grants, loans and counseling to building owners and business owners.”Carson pointed to the program as “a wonderful example of community revitalization at work.”And while that may be true, Motor City Match receives federal funding through HUD’s Community Development Block Grant program. As CNBC’s report added, under Donald Trump’s budget, the Community Development Block Grant program would be eliminated entirely.In other words, this “wonderful example of community revitalization at work” probably would not exist if Carson’s boss has his way.NBC News’ Jane C. Timm did a great job yesterday noting just how far the Trump White House intends to go targeting programs like these intended to benefit urban communities.
Released Thursday, the budget calls for $6.2 billion of cuts to the nation’s Housing and Urban Development agency, putting the already strapped federal housing authority under even bigger strain. […]To slash an additional 1.1 billion from the HUD budget, Trump’s proposal eliminates the HOME Investment Partnerships Program, the Choice Neighborhoods program, and the Self-help Homeownership Opportunity program, SHOP. The administration calls these “lower priority programs.”
Mary Cunningham, co-director of the Urban Institute’s Metropolitan Housing and Communities Center, told NBC News, “The impact of this budget is there’s going to be more people who are homeless, who are living in substandard housing, or struggling to pay rent. This budget does not outline a plan to fix the inner cities — it does the opposite. It cuts money that cities rely on.”On the campaign trail, the Republican candidate routinely told largely white audiences, “Look at how much African-American communities are suffering from Democratic control. To those I say the following: what do you have to lose by trying something new like Trump? What do you have to lose?”Evidently, African Americans in struggling urban areas have quite a bit to lose.
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Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."