HUD ‘Latino Task Force’ to Focus on Hispanic Housing

WASHINGTON – The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) officially announced its first-ever Latino Task Force during Hispanic Heritage Month 2023 . This task force is part of a larger initiative across the Federal Government to enhance educational and economic opportunities for Hispanics and Latinos.

“I am in awe of the work our Hispanic colleagues have done to create the inaugural Latino Task Force, a group that will bring us closer to accomplishing our agency’s pledge to equity, inclusion, and diversity,” HUD Secretary Marcia L. Fudge said in making the announcement.

The Task Force will include HUD career and political staff. The goal, according to HUD, is to “promote economic opportunities for the Hispanic community, drive new policy initiatives to advance equity for the Hispanic community, and create a more inclusive Department through language access, procurement and hiring.

The Task Force was created in response to a presidential Executive Order, the White House Initiative on Advancing Educational Equity, Excellence and Economic Opportunity for Hispanics, issued in September 2021.

“We have an incredible opportunity to shape how housing policies affect the Latino community across the country,” says Elizabeth de Leon Bhargava, HUD’s assistant secretary for administration. “If we want to see a meaningful impact on policies, there need to be people at the table with the lived experience that can influence those decisions.”

Task force goals

The Task Force’s inaugural meeting, led by Assistant Secretary Bhargava, the highest-ranking Latina leader at HUD, outlined the following goals:

• Highlight and uplift current HUD policies affecting the Latino community
• Identify improvement opportunities in HUD policies and communications
• Lower barriers to entry for procurement opportunities
• Identify ways to bolster Latino hiring at HUD
• Increase access to HUD opportunities by ensuring Spanish language access across the Department’s applications and policies

Almost one out of five Americans (19% or 62.1 million) are Hispanic, according to the 2020 U.S. Census. It’s the largest ethnic-racial minority group in the country but HUD says research shows that Hispanics experience severely inadequate housing at double the rate of non-Hispanics. In the 2019 “Worst Case Housing Needs” report to Congress , HUD found that nearly 25% of Hispanic households met the criteria for worst needs, either paying more than one-half of income toward housing costs, living in severely inadequate conditions, or both between 2017 and 2019.

More information on the Biden-Harris Administration’s initiatives to advance opportunity, equity and inclusion for Hispanic Americans is posted online.

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