Reading Between the Lines on Agency Mission Statements

Earlier this week, an executive at the Housing and Urban Development Department reportedly sent a memo to senior political staff announcing a change in the 53-year-old agency’s mission statement—one of a half-dozen agencies or offices to change, or consider changes, to their stated core values since the start of the Trump administration.The memo from HUD public affairs assistant secretary Amy Thompson was leaked to the Huffington Post, which reported that the words promising inclusive communities “free from discrimination” in housing were being removed in favor of language promoting self-sufficiency.