Housing and Urban Development Secretary Marcia Fudge will be stepping down from her role this month after three years of service in President Joe Biden's administration.
“It's time to go home,’’ Fudge said in an interview with USA Today, which was first to report the news. “I do believe strongly that I have done just about everything I could do at HUD for this administration as we go into this crazy, silly season of an election.”
Fudge, 71, represented Ohio in Congress from 2008-2021 before joining the Biden administration. A graduate of the Ohio State University and the Cleveland State University College of Law, she served as mayor of Warrensville Heights, Ohio, the first woman and first Black person to hold the position. She also served as the chief of staff to U.S. Rep. Stephanie Tubbs Jones during her first term in Congress, and later succeeded her in Congress after her death in 2008. While in the U.S. House of Representatives, Fudge served as Chair of the Congressional Black Caucus from 2013-2015.
She told the outlet that her last day will be March 22, and said that she will be exiting public life.
“Don’t look for me to ever be on another ballot or another appointee or anything like that,’’ she told USA Today. “I really do look forward to being a private citizen.”
In a statement released after the interview, Fudge hailed a number of accomplishments, including permanently housing 1.2 million people experiencing homelessness, helping more than two million people stay in their homes and avoid foreclosure and enforcing fair housing laws and standing up to racial bias and discrimination in the appraisal market.
"As a dedicated public servant for nearly five decades, I have been devoted to improving the quality of life for the people of this nation, focusing on those with the greatest need," she said in the statement, later adding: "It has always been my belief that government can and should work for the people. For the last three years, I have fully embraced HUD’s mission to create strong, sustainable, inclusive communities and quality affordable homes for all."
"The people HUD serves are those who are often left out and left behind," she continued. "These are my people. They serve as my motivation for everything we have been able to accomplish."
In a statement of his own, Biden hailed her "vision, passion, and focus on increasing economic opportunity have been assets to our country."
"When I took office, we inherited a broken housing system, with fair housing and civil rights protections badly dismantled under the prior administration," the president said. "On Day One, Marcia got to work rebuilding the Department of Housing and Urban Development, and over the past three years she has been a strong voice for expanding efforts to build generational wealth through homeownership and lowering costs and promoting fairness for America’s renters."
Fudge is just the second member of President Biden's Cabinet to leave during his first term in the White House, following Marty Walsh, who stepped down as Secretary of Labor last year to run the National Hockey League Players' Association. According to an analysis from the Brookings Institution, Biden's Cabinet has seen a very low turnover rate compared to the six administrations that preceded his.
Nevada Rep. Steven Horsford, the chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus, hailed Fudge's "leadership and decades of service to our country."
"Since her confirmation in March of 2021, Secretary Fudge has worked tirelessly to provide access to safe and affordable housing to millions of American families, with a particular focus on racial equity and addressing the gap in Black homeownership," Horsford said. "Under her leadership, the agency has supported nearly a quarter of a million Black people in purchasing a home and has taken significant steps to root out racial bias in the home appraisal process. She leaves her mark on the agency as a passionate leader and the first African American woman to lead the department in decades, and only the second in our nation’s history."