U.S. Secretary of the Housing and Urban Development Department Dr. Ben Carson is scheduled to visit Little Rock next month to speak at a conference.
He’s set to give the keynote address at the 2019 Fair Housing/Fair Lending Conference on April 19. The conference begins April 16 at the downtown Little Rock Marriott hotel, according to the event’s online listing.
This will be Carson’s second time in Arkansas’ capital city as the HUD secretary. The first was in April 2018 when he visited Our House, a Little Rock homeless shelter and took tours of public housing towers.
The towers were in the beginning stages of switching to Section 8 housing under the federal Rental Assistance Demonstration, which began during former President Barack Obama’s administration and has expanded under President Donald Trump.
The last time Carson was in town, protesters gathered outside the gate of Our House, demonstrating against his plan to increase rent and work requirements for HUD tenants.
Diane Yentel, the president of the National Low Income Housing Coalition, will speak at the conference on April 18. The coalition is a Washington-based organization that advocates for federal support for homeless people and affordable housing policy.
Gov. Asa Hutchinson is also set to speak at the event.
The annual Fair Housing conference is a gathering of “local, state and national housing, lending and development professionals providing a broad range of fair housing/fair lending information to help ensure equitable statewide housing access,” according to the website.
Attendance is free, but there is a $25 daily charge for professional development credits.