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Earlier this month, a scandal broke out over pricey furniture at the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). Ben Carson, a former neurosurgeon and presidential candidate, leads the government agency.

The question: How did a dining room set worth $31,000 end up in Carson’s office? It sounded like another government boondoggle, but Carson said he didn’t know about the expensive purchase and would seek to return it. Emails show he and his wife were involved in selecting furniture on some level. Congressional inquiries are underway, and the White House is looking into it.

It’s caused a stir, and money shouldn’t be mismanaged, but I think there’s a much more interesting question at the housing agency than who bought fancy chairs: In trying to run HUD, is Carson a house divided against himself?

When I started following Carson on the campaign trail in 2015, I grew accustomed to hearing familiar stories at campaign stops. The stories usually included his hard-working single mother who insisted Carson work hard too, despite the family facing the challenges of poverty. He talked about personal industry and the power of mentorship.

Carson was running for the highest office in the land, and he was offering policy proposals, but he always seemed keenly interested in talking about private solutions to public problems….

A Manhattan Institute housing expert later said the idea could work on a smaller scale, but it wouldn’t address some of the major problems in public housing units in New York (like crumbling façades, leaking roofs, and mold).

It’s unlikely Carson doesn’t care about dangerous mold, but it seems his thoughts run to this: How can we move residents toward self-sufficiency? How can we move them past HUD?

When it comes to bigger initiatives, so far Carson’s biggest push has been to call for “EnVision Centers”—community centers that are located in areas with public housing and would offer job training and other services. It could be a good idea, especially since it’s an effort groups all over the country have been doing for years—often without federal funds.

Carson sees the centers as an opportunity for private-public partnerships, and that may be a worthy goal for the agency, though faith-based groups might resist if taking federal funds would restrict their ability to teach the gospel….

Carson has learned the value and dignity of self-sufficiency over a lifetime of hard work, and he seems to want others to know that same blessing. But his agency appears stalled, and his conundrum persists: Can he find a way to address these perplexing problems on a grand scale, while encouraging micro solutions to address people’s individual situations?

It’s not brain surgery. It may actually be harder. (Excerpts from Jamie Dean’s article in WORLD Mag)