Calvin Bentley still recalls how he felt when he finally moved his wife and 7-year-old son into a public housing development in Kansas City, Missouri: “Liberated.”
His family’s arrival at West Bluff Townhomes downtown followed nights in sketchy hotel rooms and a struggle by he and his wife, Symone, to pull together first and last month’s rent each time they had to move.
“We were going from place to place, paying monthly leases and weekly payments just to be able to have a roof over our head,” he said.
But now the Bentleys find themselves fearing that cuts in Washington could threaten the only stable home they have had in months as Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency eyes the Department of Housing and Urban Development for significant cuts in its effort to downsize the federal government.
Housing advocates and local housing officials say DOGE could reduce the agency’s staff by as much as 50%, leaving the 4 million low-income American families, like the Bentleys, who rely on federal funding to keep a roof over their heads, worried about how that could affect their lives.
Their effort to get a spot in public housing was not easy, Symone Bentley said.
“We spent many, many nights crying, praying,” she said recently.
Symone and Calvin Bentley fear they could end up back where they started, scraping together money doing Door Dash and Amazon deliveries late into the night to pay for basic necessities.
“Let’s just be real, if you really don’t have much housing, you probably don’t have much money to eat either,” Calvin Bentley said. “And if you were driving, you probably don’t have money for gas either.”
He called it a “domino effect” of financial instability.
Edwin Lowndes, director of the Kansas City Housing Authority, said he agrees with Musk and President Donald Trump that inefficiencies in government “need to be fixed.” But he fears the “chainsaw” approach embraced by Musk is not the best way to do it.
Instead, he wants HUD’s leadership to define its mission and then ask, “What’s the most efficient and effective way to accomplish the objective?”
“I think every single business does that," he said. "So we should do that in our federal programs, as well.”
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Lowndes’ office uses federal money from HUD to pay landlords through housing vouchers for more than 8,000 families in Kansas City that would otherwise likely be homeless. Another 25,000 families are on a waiting list.
The Department of Housing and Urban Development had about 8,800 staff members nationwide at the beginning of the year and has already laid off hundreds of employees, according to two HUD sources. The agency has not said how many employees have been fired since DOGE was created in January.
But a document obtained by NBC News shows future possible cuts of HUD staff by as much as 50% across the agency, including in the unit that handles rental assistance, which could shrink from 1,529 staffers to 765 by mid-May, according to the document.
A source familiar with discussions about staff cuts told NBC News that “conversations are ongoing as the Department explores consolidation while continuing to prioritize service.”
The department is inventorying personnel and programs to ensure “they are working for the American people and delivering the best results,” it said in a statement.
“HUD serves our most vulnerable and will continue to do so in the most efficient and effective way possible,” the department said.
Lowndes said he fears that looming staff cuts in Washington and in regional HUD offices will disrupt funds he uses to pay landlords. But he remains optimistic.
“The practical side of me says in the pragmatic side, ‘Congress won’t allow that to happen, whether it’s Democrat or Republican,’” he said. “I think when they really get down to looking at what they need to do, there are enough voices on both sides to say this is a program that, while it has inefficiencies, it’s needed. We cannot just walk away.”
For Calvin Bentley, the fear that his new home could be jeopardized is real given that he and his family now feel safe. He says he wishes more people could get the help they received.
“It literally shows that there are programs to help people who just need, just a little, just need a leg up there,” he said. “There is hope.”
