If ever there was a time to have a fully functional U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development it is now in the aftermath of the housing market crash, which began in 2007 and has yet to recover whole. But nearly two weeks after government shutdown, HUD has definitely suffered the hardest blow: 96 percent of their staff, or 8,372 out of 8,709 people, are out of work right now. HUD is the agency that chiefly handles public housing for low-income families and housing discrimination complaints