{"id":271533,"date":"2026-08-24T22:58:13","date_gmt":"2026-08-24T22:58:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/271533\/"},"modified":"2026-08-24T22:58:13","modified_gmt":"2026-08-24T22:58:13","slug":"after-departing-trump-admin-huds-former-philly-head-joins-local-planning-commission","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/271533\/","title":{"rendered":"After Departing Trump Admin, HUD’s Former Philly Head Joins Local Planning Commission"},"content":{"rendered":"

Robert Ford started working at the Department of Housing and Urban Development<\/a> before he had even graduated from college.\u00a0<\/p>\n

His decision to depart the agency during the early days of the second Trump administration<\/a> \u2014 after nearly a quarter century, in which he rose to be the top HUD official in eastern Pennsylvania \u2014\u00a0came with a lot of heartache.<\/p>\n

\u201cI check in on my closest friends who are still there,\u201d Ford said of his former co-workers.\u00a0 \u201cThe workload has gotten significantly higher because a lot of people left last year.\u201d<\/p>\n

The housing expert is now dividing his time between several new ventures. In addition to working as a real estate agent and an affordable housing consultant, Ford is the defensive line coach for the West Chester University football team. <\/p>\n

And earlier this month, Ford was appointed by Mayor Ed Brown<\/a> to serve on the Planning Commission for Upper Darby, a municipality bordering Philadelphia that is the sixth most populous<\/a> in the state.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Courtesy of Robert Ford<\/p>\n

Ford\u2019s last day as a HUD employee was April 30, 2025.\u00a0<\/p>\n

He started with a summer internship facilitated by an uncle who worked at the agency and rose to become the field office director leading HUD’s Philadelphia office, which oversees the agency’s operations in 38 counties across eastern Pennsylvania.<\/p>\n

Ford stayed with the agency through the entire first Trump administration, which he said went fine: \u201cOther than the secretary he brought in, everyone had a housing background and an idea of how HUD operated.\u201d<\/p>\n

But as the president\u2019s new set of appointees took control of the agency in early 2025, Ford realized the situation would be different this time around.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The effort to downsize the federal government\u2019s footprint, spearheaded by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, led to the creation of a deferred resignation program. This allowed workers to avoid return-to-office<\/a> mandates and retain their retirement benefits if they agreed to depart later that year.<\/p>\n

Ford, who had intended to stay at HUD until he was eligible for retirement at age 58, didn\u2019t initially opt in.<\/p>\n

\u201cI didn\u2019t want to leave my job,\u201d the 45-year-old said.<\/p>\n

But the HUD lifer changed his mind after his position was reclassified to Schedule F, which made him easier to fire. If Ford was canned under the new designation, he could have lost all of his retirement benefits.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you came into the office and just looked at someone the wrong way, they could decide to fire you,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt sucked. It really was a hard decision to make. It was an emotional decision to make,\u201d he said of leaving the agency. \u201cThe work environment was terrible. \u2026 They didn\u2019t treat career HUD employees as the experts they were.\u201d<\/p>\n

After departing, Ford spent a month assessing his situation before his schedule started to fill up again.<\/p>\n

He became a certified real estate agent in Pennsylvania and Maryland last year and now works selling residences in Philly and Delaware County through Realty One Group. He primarily deals in single-family homes, but he has also sold properties as large as six units.<\/p>\n

He also started a consultancy called RJF Property Strategies, in which Ford helps affordable housing companies file paperwork correctly with HUD and other federal agencies.<\/p>\n

He is now hoping to use his housing expertise to aid the township where he lived for most of his career while he was at HUD.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve lived in Upper Darby for 22 years now,\u201d the West Philadelphia native said of his new Planning Commission role in the dense suburb just outside city limits.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe times that I\u2019ve given back to the community, it\u2019s pretty much been Philadelphia. That was my original community,\u201d he said. \u201cThis is my opportunity to give back to Upper Darby.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Man<\/p>\n

Courtesy of Robert Ford<\/p>\n

The former Northeast High School football star, whose college dreams were ended by an injury, also decided to turn his two-plus decades of youth and high school coaching into a part-time career.<\/p>\n

After leading the team at Monsignor Bonner & Archbishop Prendergast Catholic High School in Upper Darby to a statewide divisional championship in 2024, he was tapped to help lead WCU\u2019s defensive squad.<\/p>\n

Ford said his coaching background helped him excel in the federal government.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cOne thing I learned from football was that every player responds to you differently. \u2026 I feel like football taught me that same lesson while I was a leader at HUD,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cEvery employee, every director, every person, any stakeholder I ran across had their own motivations. It was my job to find out what that motivation was and what helped them make the best outcome.\u201d<\/p>\n

In Upper Darby, Ford aims to enable the construction of more housing without sacrificing its limited remaining green space.<\/p>\n

He saw the potential for adaptive reuse<\/a> projects, some of which he oversaw at the agency, to help accomplish that goal.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf there are places in Upper Darby that are old industrial, old commercial and no longer being utilized in that way, let’s find a way to redevelop that space, get it active again and hopefully make it housing or mixed-use,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Ford also sees an opportunity for upzoning around 69th Street as a way to generate more housing and foot traffic. The neighborhood, anchored by a dense SEPTA<\/a> transit hub and a retail corridor, is walkable but riddled with vacancy.<\/p>\n

Ford said SEPTA is pushing multifamily construction at some of its other stations around the region and pointed to suburban mixed-use projects like the King of Prussia Town Center<\/a> as potential inspirations.<\/p>\n

Some of the greatest accomplishments he cited from his time at HUD were rehabilitations of struggling neighborhoods.<\/p>\n

Ford was particularly proud of the $30M grant his former team issued to the Philadelphia Housing Authority<\/a> to help redevelop Sharswood in North Philadelphia.<\/p>\n

PHA moved its headquarters to the neighborhood after tearing down a derelict high-rise complex and is adding hundreds of lower-density townhome-style apartments.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat neighborhood has totally changed for the better,\u201d Ford said. \u201cI\u2019m very proud of that.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Robert Ford started working at the Department of Housing and Urban Development before he had even graduated from…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":271534,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[5013,114330,147,149,148,150,12916],"class_list":["post-271533","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-upper-darby","tag-department-of-housing-and-urban-development","tag-robert-ford","tag-upper-darby","tag-upper-darby-headlines","tag-upper-darby-news","tag-upper-darby-township","tag-west-chester-university"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/271533","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=271533"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/271533\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/271534"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=271533"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=271533"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=271533"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}