Press Releases

Yesterday, Congressman Bill Huizenga (R-MI), Vice Chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, secured a commitment from Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Secretary Scott Turner that Harbor Towers in Benton Harbor is on track to receive much needed federal funding for renovations in March.

In 2024, Huizenga called on the Biden Administration to meet its commitment to residents of Harbor Towers regarding both standard of living as well as overall safety. Huizenga has consistently fought for the residents of Harbor Towers after touring the property with Benton Harbor Mayor Marcus Mohammad. 

Additionally, Congressman Huizenga thanked Secretary Turner for talking to Kalamazoo Mayor David Anderson on challenges facing the community pertaining to homelessness and invited the Secretary to visit Southwest Michigan. Video of Congressman Huizenga and Secretary Turner’s conversation as well as a transcript of the dialogue in available below.

On Securing Funding for Harbor Towers

Congressman Bill Huizenga:  Secretary Turner, good to see you again, and I appreciate your attendance here today. And first I want to say thank you for speaking with me last week on the phone and, and about our shared priorities and especially state of low-income housing in my district. And I also appreciate your staff who took the time for a call with the Mayor of Kalamazoo, David Anderson and an organization called Integrated Services of Kalamazoo to discuss homelessness and homeless projects and programs that we have.

Back specifically though, I do also want to highlight a project in Benton Harbor, Michigan in my district, it's called Harbor Towers dating back to 2011. Residents have been complaining about the conditions that they have experienced there, including no heat, hot water, security concerns. In 2024, I visited the property myself with Mayor Marcus Muhammad to bring attention to a housing development that has long been neglected.

We got the ball rolling then and it's my understanding that the funding for this project is set to close in March of this year. And I just want to get your commitment that you are going to work with me and the fine folks there to see that project through.

Secretary Scott Turner: Yes sir, Congressman, thank you. You know, we are more than willing to work with you in your office to make sure that the people that are living there are living in the best conditions possible and that we are stewarding well over taxpayer dollars and carrying out HUD's missions.

Huizenga: And both of those things can happen.

Secretary Turner: Yes.

Huizenga: We can be both a steward and provide proper housing for those folks. And that is, it's an important component of this. So, I appreciate your support and I know the residents of Harbor Towers will be very, very glad to hear that that much needed funding has been secured.

And lastly, I'd love to invite you to the fourth district. It's one of the most beautiful districts that you'll ever see. I don't care what my other colleagues say. But I do highly recommend sometime in the spring, maybe the summer Benton Harbor is right on the shores of Lake Michigan. Love to get you there. Love to get you to Kalamazoo and Battle Creek, Cereal City USA, where we can take a look at a few of those projects that are in the district.

Turner: Sure.

Huizenga: I look forward to working hopefully with your schedule on that. And there's lot of folks that get support in Michigan, but I think it's important that you come to Southwest Michigan to see some of those challenges that we have.

On HUD Oversight of Local Housing Authorities

Huizenga: Something you and I have discussed in the past, and I know you touched on in your testimony, and I believe the Chair brought up in his opening statement. But I wanted to give you an opportunity to expand on your, on the work HUD is doing to hold local housing authorities accountable. So, could you please expand on that work?

Secretary Turner: Sure. Thank you. You know, we came in a lot during the Biden Administration. A blind eye had been turned to transparency and accountability in our public housing authorities. We have 3,800 public housing authorities around our country, urban and rural, and we came in with the idea and the intention to hold public housing authorities accountable for those that live inside of public housing authorities, the living conditions inside of public housing authorities.

And so, we've been working with Department of Homeland Security and other federal agency partners to make sure that those that are living inside of HUD funded properties are indeed American citizens, that they are upholding the living conditions that they're supposed to be upholding for our people that live inside of those public housing should be safe housing.

And so, we have a task force. We announced a new hotline that people can call if there's nefarious activity going on in our public housing authorities. 1-800-347-3735 is a number that people can call to our hotline with the Office of Inspector General. There's drug trafficking, there's sex trafficking, there's domestic violence. There's all kind of things that are going on criminally inside of housing authorities, and I'm not willing to turn the blind eye to that anymore. But we need to protect our women, our children, and our families to be safe in housing authority.

So, I unapologetically want to say we're going to root out crime and come for those who are doing criminal and nefarious activity. Because we will not stand for that any longer, sir.

Huizenga: Amen. Thank you for that. The folks that they're supposed to be serving deserve that.