The Departments of the Interior (DOI) and Housing and Urban Development (HUD) are creating a taskforce to study how federal land could be used to alleviate America’s housing shortage.
Interior Secretary Doug Burgum and HUD chief Scott Turner announced the partnership between their departments on Monday in a clip posted to social media. The two cabinet secretaries signed an agreement to begin work on tackling “our nation’s housing affordability crisis.”
“HUD will work with DOI to assess the housing needs in areas where federal lands may. Available yet underutilized and implement tailored housing programs with guidance from states and localities,” Turner said.
Burgum added: “This partnership will identify underutilized federal lands suitable for residential development and streamline the land transfer process. It will also promote policies to increase the availability of affordable housing while balancing important environmental and land use considerations.”
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
We need 7 million affordable homes in America and 20% of America’s landmass is owned by the Department of Interior. 
Today, <a href="https://twitter.com/SecretaryBurgum?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@SecretaryBurgum</a> and I are announcing a partnership between <a href="https://twitter.com/HUDgov?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@HUDgov</a> &amp; <a href="https://twitter.com/Interior?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@Interior</a> to identify and open under utilized federal lands for affordable housing. <a href="https://t.co/p1EU04Ay7B">pic.twitter.com/p1EU04Ay7B</a>
&mdash; Scott Turner (@SecretaryTurner) <a href="https://twitter.com/SecretaryTurner/status/1901634637606035462?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 17, 2025</a></blockquote>
The federal government owns about a quarter of the land inside the United States, and most of that land is located in the western regions of the country. The Bureau of Land Management, which resides within the Department of the Interior, is responsible for overseeing much of that land.
The effort to build millions of new homes, if it proves workable, would be one of the largest housing efforts in United States history. Past attempts have been unsuccessful, however, largely due to disagreements between officials at the various levels of government involved in such an undertaking, according to <a href="https://www.wsj.com/economy/housing/trump-wants-to-build-homes-on-federal-land-heres-what-that-would-look-like-6b8fb82e" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Wall Street Journal</a>.
The housing plan would likely focus on federal lands around major cities such as Las Vegas, Phoenix, and Salt Lake City, according to experts. A preliminary analysis by a conservative think tank, the American Enterprise Institute, found that housing developments on just 512,000 acres of the federal government’s roughly 640 million acres would result in three to four million homes.
Burgum and Turner outlined the agreement in an <a href="https://www.wsj.com/opinion/federal-land-can-be-home-sweet-home-joint-task-force-hud-interior-department-housing-affordability-3a281d36?mod=article_inline" target="_blank" rel="noopener">op-ed</a> in The Wall Street Journal on Sunday.
“HUD will pinpoint where housing needs are most pressing and guide the process by working with state and local leaders who know their communities best. Interior will identify locations that can support homes while carefully considering environmental impact and land-use restrictions,” the secretaries wrote.
“Streamlining the regulatory process is a cornerstone of this partnership. Historically, building on federal land is a nightmare of red tape—lengthy environmental reviews, complex transfer protocols and disjointed agency priorities. This partnership will cut through the bureaucracy,” they continued. “This isn’t a free-for-all to build on federal lands, although we recognize that bad-faith critics will likely call it that. It’s a strategic effort to use our resources responsibly while preserving our most beautiful lands.”

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