Trump Housing Chief’s Big Plans Risk Getting Crushed by Trump

“Y’all see that brick?” Scott Turner asks with a grin. It’s a July afternoon in Washington, DC, and he’s pointing at a white cinder block that’s sitting on the carpeted floor of his office at the US Department of Housing and Urban Development. Turner says the brick fell out of his ceiling a few months earlier and missed his cranium by a couple of feet. The lesson, he says, was clear: It was time for HUD to find a new home.

It’s undeniable that the housing agency’s headquarters has seen better days. HUD has occupied the same offices ...