More than 100 people gathered Friday morning in front of the Henry M. Jackson Federal Building in downtown Seattle to protest potential cuts to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.
Since President Donald Trump entered office, the Department of Government Efficiency led by billionaire Elon Musk has been slashing swaths of federal funding and workers. Many at Friday’s gathering were concerned about the severity of potential cuts to the department that funds the majority of low-income housing and homelessness programs in the country.
One of them, Ashley Kenny, who works in family homeless services, held a sign that read “Hands off HUD.”
“Anything less than the HUD we have now is going to leave millions of children outside, and that breaks my heart,” Kenny said.
HUD provides money to subsidize housing for tens of thousands of people in King County. The department also provides about $67 million for homelessness services in King County. The Regional Homelessness Authority said it is not experiencing any problems receiving federal funds. However, rumors and internal memos are circling among HUD employees that suggest large cuts are coming, including the closing of the department’s Seattle office, which has sparked anxiety among the staff there.
“We are here to say, ‘No, keep our HUD offices open, release our funds and let us do the work of housing our community,’ ” said Alison Eisinger, executive director of the Seattle/King County Coalition on Homelessness, a speaker at the gathering.
Troy Christensen, executive director of Porchlight, a homeless services organization in Bellevue, said to the crowd that cuts to HUD could increase homelessness at a massive scale.
“This task was difficult enough before,” Christensen said. “To compound it in the way that they are suggesting is unacceptable.”
A coalition called Federal Building Fridays has met downtown every week since President Trump’s inauguration to protest the DOGE cuts and to support federal workers. Each week, the group has protested cuts to different services and departments, including Social Security, Medicaid and Veterans Affairs.
“The majority of people support public schools, the majority of people support Social Security, the majority of people support health care. The majority of people support housing,” said Beth Brunton, one of the organizers of the weekly event. “I know Republicans and Democrats disagree, but this is, like, over the top.”
