Federal Whistleblowers Choose Oath Over Safety, Urge Intervention in HUD

MAXIMILLIAN ALVAREZ: All right, welcome everyone to Working People, a podcast about the lives, jobs, dreams and struggles of the working class today. Working People is a proud member of the Labor Radio Podcast Network and is brought to you in partnership with In These Times and The Real News Network. This show is produced by Jules Taylor and made possible by the support of listeners like you. My name is Maximillian Alvarez, and we’ve got an explosive story for y’all today.

Whistleblowers working in the federal government are going public with an emergency alarm message from within the Department of Housing and Urban Development. According to their formal whistleblower complaint, which they have already filed with Senator Elizabeth Warren from Massachusetts who herself will be formally notifying HUD Inspector General Brian D. Harrison and requesting the contained charges be thoroughly investigated, ​“HUD leadership has already violated the law and taken actions that will result in legal violations, gross mismanagement, gross waste of funds and present a specific danger to public health and safety.”

The complaints were filed by four attorneys and staff workers at HUD’s Office of General Counsel and Office of Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity. In their first on-air appearance, we are speaking with two of those four whistleblowers here on The Real News. They are speaking with us on their own behalf, not on behalf of HUD or any office they’re in.

Welcome to you both. Thank you so much for being here and for speaking with us. Please, let’s start by introducing yourselves and give our audience a short summary of the allegations that you have presented to Senator Warren.

PAUL OSADEBE: I’m Paul Osadebe. I’m a trial attorney in the Department of Housing and Urban Development, Office of General Counsel of Fair Housing. I’m also a steward with AFGE Local 476 and an organizer with the Federal Unionists Network.

To put it simply, we work on housing. We make sure that people have safe, affordable and equal housing in this country, that everyone has the chance to achieve the American dream and have a roof over their head. That’s what we came to HUD to work on, but every avenue that we have to do that crucial work is being dismantled piece by piece.

We knew that we couldn’t just stay silent and allow that to happen. We knew that by coming forward there was going to be some risk to us of course, but people fought and marched and bled and died for these rights that we enforce.

PALMER HEENAN: Thanks Paul, and thanks Max for having us. We really appreciate it. My name is Palmer Heenan. I am also a trial attorney in the Office of General Counsel of Fair Housing Enforcement. I’m a member of the AFGE 476 union as well.

We are one of the only federal agencies that is charged and, in fact, required by Congress to investigate and prosecute discrimination across the country.

The frank fact of the matter is that, right now, discrimination is not being prosecuted. Fair housing laws are not being enforced. What that means is that every American is less able to secure safe and stable housing.

ALVAREZ: You know, it’s a real shame that our history is forgotten so quickly. Folks may be hearing this wondering, ​“Well, what’s the point of civil rights law enforcement at HUD?” and I’m here sitting in Baltimore, the home of redlining where racial segregation in housing perfected and exported around the rest of the country. So, if you’ve forgotten that part of our history, you should really pick up a book and educate yourself.

I wanted to ask if you could, as workers for the federal government, give us an inside view of what you, your co-workers and your clients have been experiencing at the Department of Housing and Urban Development over the past year?

OSADEBE: From day one, It’s been an attack from the top through everything that could possibly be used to help people. 

Everything that you could imagine that could be done to slow down certain types of work, especially civil rights work — to disparage, to cause fear, to cause chaos, to have people so scared of what management might do that they’re censoring themselves — that’s the environment that’s been created. 

That does not save anybody any money. That does not improve safety or efficiency for anyone. It only causes harm to you out there, who need someone to enforce their rights and to be concerned about everyday Americans, not just landlords and developers and people who can bend the government to their whim. 

And, of course, it’s not everyone that has those restrictions. Other parts of the office can talk freely. For example, the parts of the office that defend the agency’s actions or that defend personnel actions, those parts of the agency can talk freely. It’s the parts that help people, the parts that help your average American out there, those are the parts that are restricted. 

ALVAREZ: Let’s talk specifically about the Violence Against Women Act or VAWA and the charges made in your whistleblower complaint that these top down administrative changes will ​“place survivors in greater danger of suffering additional trauma, physical violence and even death.”

OSADEBE: We are talking about cases where people are on the street and the only housing available for miles is government provided housing that HUD provides. We fund the housing. We build the housing. The only way that someone will have a roof above their head and for their kids is if they are allowed in the housing but, for some reason, a landlord does not want to allow someone with a history of domestic violence. Or, they have a partner or spouse or stalker that is abusing them, and the landlord doesn’t want to allow them in. 

We are the only ones who enforce the law and stop that from happening. This administration has issued executive orders and made a lot of pretty statements about defending women, and yet they take away the team that actually defends women, that makes sure that people are physically safe. 

ALVAREZ: Another bombshell allegation in your whistleblower complaint states that HUD leadership has actually intercepted and rescinded referrals to the Department of Justice concerning at least 115 ​“major investigations and cases concerning alleged housing discrimination and segregation, including some where the agency already found civil rights violations.” Can you guys break this down for us? 

HEENAN: One case in particular involved a large HOA in Texas that HUD found had engaged in systemic racial discrimination. It was actually more than 50 separate cases involving more than 150 people that were impacted, and many of them experienced horrific racial discrimination.

They were harassed, called racial epithets, some of them told us that they were physically threatened, all with the idea of driving them out from this community. Our office, as we are required to do by the Fair Housing Act, filed our charge of discrimination, essentially HUD’s version of a lawsuit, and the DOJ became involved as part of the Fair Housing Act. 

Once the case was over at the Department of Justice, we were told that the referral of the case had been rescinded, and that was it. For months and months and months, the case has now just sat. Veterans, survivors of domestic violence, all of whom experienced this horrific treatment, have not been able to get justice through the process that was mandated by statute for we at HUD to engage in. 

That’s just one example of the many cases where the referrals of the charges have been withdrawn, where the cases themselves have been dismissed, where political interference has led to outcomes that contradict what it is we’re supposed to be doing under the Fair Housing Act.

ALVAREZ: What happens now? What can be done, both with this whistleblower complaint and beyond?

OSADEBE: That’s a question that people ask a lot in times like these. It’s not easy to answer those questions, but I do know the solution does lie in solidarity. 

All the people who feel that something has gone wrong, and that they want to get involved and do something — now is the time to do it. You do that through joining your union, making your union better, and finding out ways to build the type of power that can actually hold people to account. 

ALVAREZ: I wanted to give you both the chance if you have any final messages that you wanted to share with the American public, with other federal workers, as Paul was just addressing. Anything you want to say about why they need to care about this, what they can do to fight back and what will happen if they don’t?

HEENAN: We have to stand together. We have to do what we can where we can, even if it’s just one small thing, to make sure that people get justice when they are discriminated against. 

ALVAREZ: All right, gang. That’s going to wrap things up for us this week. I want to thank our guests, Paul Osadebe and Palmer Heenan — both attorneys and whistleblowers working in the federal government, both members of the Federal Unionists network and both represented by the American Federation of Government Employees Local 476. 

I also want to thank the Federal Unionists Network for the vital work that they are doing. If you are a federal worker or you support federal workers, and you haven’t yet reached out to the Federal Unionists Network, you can find their information in the show notes for this episode. 

Of course, I want to thank you all for listening, and I want to thank you for caring. We’ll see y’all back here next week for another episode of Working People.

You can sign up for The Real News newsletter so you never miss a story, and you can help us do more work like this by going to the​re​al​news​.com/​d​onate and becoming a supporter today. I promise you guys — I say it every time — we really need it, and it really makes a difference. 

I’m Maximillian Alvarez. Take care of yourselves. Take care of each other, and don’t stop fighting. Solidarity. Forever.

This episode of the Working People Podcast was published on September 23.