On April 3rd, the Trump administration released its budget request for fiscal year 2027, which included cutting the Department of Housing and Urban Development discretionary budget from $84.2 billion in 2026 to $73.5 billion in 2027. In addition to these cuts, the administration is proposing additional requirements for existing programs.
These proposed changes shift where the money for rental assistance and public housing will be spent. Project-Based Rental Assistance is reduced by $903 million, as well as cuts to Section 202 Supportive Housing for the Elderly program and Supportive Housing for Persons with Disabilities program. These changes are somewhat offset by a $407M increase to Tenant-Based Rental Assistance (Housing Choice Voucher Program) and a $303M increase to Public Housing funding, but in total, rental assistance and public housing funding has decreased by about 0.4%.
This marks a significant change in strategy for the administration, which wanted to cut spending on rental assistance programs by $26.7B for fiscal year 2025. Instead, the administration is suggesting new requirements for these programs, including 20 hours a week work requirements, 60 month cap on assistance, massively limiting new vouchers for public housing, and removing the Rental Assistance Demonstration (RAD) program cap. While these proposed requirements also include exemptions, they would still provide meaningful limits on federal assistance.
The next major change in the budget is a consolidation of HUD homelessness programs into a single Emergency Solutions Grant (ESG) program, which would be given $4B instead of the nearly $5B these programs used in 2026. The eliminated programs would be:
- Continuum of Care (CoC) program
- Construction of new Permanent Supportive Housing (PSH)
- Youth Homelessness Demonstration Program (YHDP)
- National Homeless Data Analysis Project (NHDAP)
- Housing Opportunities for Persons with AIDS (HOPWA)
The proposed budget also provides no funding for several programs, effectively eliminating them. These proposed cuts would end the Community Development Block Grant (CDBG), HOME Investment Partnerships (HOME), and Pathways to Removing Obstacles to Housing (PRO Housing). These programs made up $4.6B of federal funding for housing in 2026. Other cut programs include a 22% reduction of the Native American Housing Block Grant program, and the elimination of the Family Self-Sufficiency (FSS), Jobs-Plus Pilot, the Resident Opportunity and Self-Sufficiency (ROSS) programs, Fair Housing Initiatives Program (FHIP), National Fair Housing Training Academy, and the Limited English Proficiency Initiative (LEPI).
Finally, there are other housing-related budget cuts in other departments, most significantly the elimination of Low Income Home Energy Assistance (LIHEAP), a $4B program that provides energy for need-based home energy bill assistance.
These proposed cuts are simply requests made by the executive branch. The final budget will be drafted, amended, voted on, and passed by Congress later this year. However, this proposal signals where the administration stands, and will act as the starting point that Congress will modify.