The event planner President Trump picked to oversee the city’s public housing pushed back the time frame for her moving into one of the apartments due to the government shutdown.
Lynne Patton, who served as a Trump family event planner and had zero housing experience before being appointed head of federal housing programs in New York and New Jersey, tweeted Monday that moving into a New York City Housing Authority development had to be postponed.
“Today I was slated to move into @NYCHA. Due to the shutdown, I cannot until it is lifted,” she wrote. “The Anti-Deficiency Act (31 USC 1341) prohibits federal officials from performing certain duties. The move-in is considered acting in my official capacity. Look forward to a new start date!”
Patton has said the idea of living in a public housing apartment, considered a publicity stunt by some, came to her after reading about conditions NYCHA residents have suffered for years.
“It hit me like a ton of bricks that this is no longer okay,” she told the Washington Post in November. “It was not okay for me to preside over the largest housing crisis in the nation from the warmth and comfort of my own safe and sanitary apartment while NYCHA residents continue to suffer the most inhumane conditions.”
Patton took heat over her appointment to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development in June after The News revealed she falsely claimed to have a law degree from the Quinnipiac University School of Law in Connecticut.
From 2011 to January 2018 she also helped run the Eric Trump Foundation, which is being investigated by the New York State Attorney General.
