Dive Brief:
- The Trump administration is once again asking Congress to eliminate spending within the Department of Housing and Urban Development, reducing the agency’s discretionary budget for fiscal 2027 by 13% to $73.5 billion.
- The budget proposal eliminates key affordable housing and homeless assistance for local governments, including the $3.3 billion Community Development Block Grant and $1.3 billion HOME Investment Partnerships Program. It also cuts $393 million from homeless assistance programs in favor of services for mental health and substance abuse programs.
- The U.S. Conference of Mayors called on Congress to protect the “critical” programs. “These programs have enjoyed bipartisan support for decades, have produced measurable results, and are more effective because they include local decision-making,” USCM President and Oklahoma City Mayor David Holt said in a news release.
Dive Insight:
Well into its second year, the Trump administration has so far been unsuccessful in convincing Congress to gut or reroute funding for federal affordable housing and homeless aid programs.
In its FY26 budget, the administration called for $33 billion in cuts to HUD, a request that Congress “resoundingly rejected,” according to the National Low Income Housing Coalition. Congress instead increased funding for HUD programs by $7.2 billion, NLIHC stated in a press release.
The latest proposed budget reflects the administration’s push to move away from “housing first” efforts in favor of approaching homelessness as a mental health and criminal justice issue by eliminating funding for the Continuum of Care program and injecting $4 billion into an Emergency Solutions Grant program for short-term transitional housing.
The administration also continues to target HUD programs it deems “woke” or that promote equity, including HUD’s $50 million Pathways to Removing Obstacles to Housing.
As an affordable housing and homelessness crisis continues in the U.S., NLIHC called on Congress to increase federal funding for assistance programs that the Trump administration seeks to slash.
“We respect the overall desire for budget cuts, but these specific cuts would be harmful to the American people,” USCM’s Holt said. “The proposed cuts to HOME and CDBG would put stable and accessible housing further out of reach for many Americans and would increase homelessness. Affordability is the major issue of the midterms, and these cuts would take our nation in the opposite direction.”
