AUSTIN – Today, Texas Land Commissioner Dawn Buckingham called out Congressional Democrats for continuing to push a false narrative about federal disaster recovery and mitigation funding. The politically motivated and false claims date back to 2021 and have been successfully disputed by the Texas General Land Office (GLO) for years. The same unproven claims were previously sent by Biden’s political appointees in the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) to the Department of Justice (DOJ) nearly two years ago and were rejected for lacking substance – in less than 48 hours.
“Congressional Democrats continue to ignore facts and offer zero proof with false claims regarding discrimination,” said Commissioner Dawn Buckingham, M.D. “Two thirds of the beneficiaries of the mitigation funding – more than 1,000,000 – are minorities and 100% are low-to-moderate income – surpassing the metrics required by HUD. There simply was no discrimination, which is why they rely on Hail Mary publicity stunts in the final hours of the Biden Administration instead of the facts. Perhaps the DOJ and HUD should investigate the multiple failures under former Mayor Turner’s administration some of which were in violation of federal law.”
As Commissioner Buckingham stated previously, “The GLO developed the plan for its mitigation funding following HUD’s instructions and then implemented the plan HUD approved – five years ago. The GLO is not at fault because HUD’s political appointees and the liberal advocates who controlled them wanted to hand pick who should get funding and who should not.”
Commissioner Buckingham also highlighted the many failures by former Mayor Sylvester Turner to deliver vital resources to Houstonians while pandering to the media about HUD-mandated GLO oversight of his disaster recovery housing funding. While having direct access to $1.2 billion in disaster recovery funding to meet the housing needs of Houston, Mayor Turner:
- Displaced 900 Houstonians from four apartment complexes and failed to provide relocation assistance to cover moving expenses, deposits, and rent increases, in violation of federal law. The GLO is still looking for hundreds of low-income Houstonians who are owed this money by law.
- Fired his Housing Director after he raised the alarm that Turner was violating federal law in forcing him to participate in a “charade” of a procurement process by bypassing the highest-scoring applications and awarding the contract to a single project that would invest $15 million in Harvey aid to a project to build less than a quarter of the apartments of those recommended by staff. It was later discovered that the development company Turner was directing funding to was run by Turner’s former law partner, Barry Barnes.
- Promoted the head of "compliance" to the position after firing the whistleblower. This Turner appointee later sold city electronics to friends and coworkers in violation of the law.
- Failed to help Houstonians in need. A HUD audit of the City of Houston’s disaster recovery efforts found that, "3 years after Hurricane Harvey, the City had spent only 1.8 percent of its suballocated grant funds, which substantially delayed assistance to participants. Further, it had assisted only 297 of 8,784 housing program participants, leaving affected Houstonians without the help they needed."
- Filed a restraining order when the GLO stepped in to help the City of Houston, further delaying rebuilding assistance for thousands of Houstonians. An ABC investigation revealed Houston had rebuilt fewer than 60 homes at the time the GLO offered to help, while the GLO had rebuilt more than 1,000 homes across 48 counties.
- Prevented Houstonians from applying for assistance. The city’s convoluted application screening process resulted in thousands of Houstonians not having the opportunity to qualify for financial assistance for home repairs. In contrast, the GLO helped nearly 3,000 Texans outside of Houston and Harris County receive about $86 million in financial assistance for home repairs.
“Time and time again, through incompetence or corruption, Mayor Turner failed the people of Houston forcing the GLO to come behind his mess and deliver the resources he didn’t,” said Buckingham. “The GLO has rebuilt more than 2,500 homes for Houston and Harris County residents and continue to seek Houston renters displaced by Mayor Turner’s housing program.”