HUD headquarters move draws legal, funding scrutiny
Source: Politico
02/08/2026 10:00 AM EST
The Department of Housing and Urban Development has started its long-awaited, multistage relocation of Washington-based staff to Alexandria, Virginia, even as questions swirl over the move’s legality, cost and congressional oversight.
The union representing HUD employees argues the department is violating federal law that requires the agency to maintain its headquarters in the District of Columbia, absent explicit approval from Congress. Lawmakers, meanwhile, have been waiting since June — when HUD announced plans to relocate to the previous National Science Foundation building in Virginia — for basic information about the budget and decision-making behind moving approximately 3,000 federal employees.
“We need more transparency and more insight into their plans when it’s possible to ask questions and make changes, not just be presented after the fact with what they’ve decided to do,” Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Development committee ranking member Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) said in an interview. “These guys may think they’re being very clever by hiding information from us, but in the long run, they’re just hiding it from the American people,”
HUD has defended its accelerated relocation plans as important to save taxpayer dollars and protect the well-being of employees, but critics say the administration’s efforts to push the move forward with limited congressional input reflects a broader White House pattern of sidelining the legislative branch. “It shows the same kind of contempt for Congress and congressional oversight as pretty much every other part of the Trump administration demonstrates,” Warren said.
Read more: https://www.politico.com/news/2026/02/08/legal-funding-concerns-loom-over-huds-relocation-to-virginia-00768637
