National Housing Law Project Urges HUD to Withdraw Harmful Proposal to Take Away Housing

WASHINGTON D.C.—The National Housing Law Project (NHLP) today urged Trump’s Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) to withdraw its proposal to take away housing assistance from millions of families by allowing housing providers to impose harsh and cruel work requirements and time limits across almost all HUD housing programs. If the proposed rule is finalized, an estimated 3.3 million families will be at risk of losing their HUD housing subsidy, including 1.7 million families with children and 2 million families with working members.

“Rooted in racist stereotypes, HUD’s proposed rule will result in families losing their housing. HUD proposes implementing a rule which Congress has not authorized, HUD has not adequately studied, and which is poorly drafted. In the name of providing ‘flexibility’ to public housing authorities and owners, HUD is exceeding the will of Congress and providing a roadmap for destabilization of the housing market and increased homelessness. In the midst of an affordable housing crisis, HUD’s proposed rule does nothing to address the root causes of poverty, runs contrary to its own policies, and is not supported by rigorous research,” the National Housing Law Project wrote in a comment to HUD.

In a comment, NHLP urged HUD to withdraw its proposal for the following reasons:

• Only Congress, not HUD, has the legal authority to impose new substantive requirements on housing programs, and Congress has repeatedly rejected attempts to impose harsh work requirements or time limits on all federally subsidized tenants;
• Research uniformly shows that harsh and inflexible work requirements and time limits in public benefits programs lead to economic precarity without a corresponding increase in employment because families lose access to desperately needed assistance; 
• Implementing a patchwork of different work requirements and time limits would create chaos and confusion for both tenants and housing providers; and
• Policies that take away housing assistance like harsh work requirements and strict time limits ignore the root causes of the housing crisis: housing costs that rise faster than wages, lack of rent controls or tenant protections, and a massive shortage in affordable homes for poor and working people. 

HUD’s proposal is part of the Trump administration’s attempts to destroy the federal housing programs and worsen the housing crisis. HUD’s own economic impact analysis estimates that under the work requirements proposal, 39,000-153,000 people would lose their housing assistance, and if time limits are imposed, 88,000-334,000 people, including tens of thousands of children, could be kicked out of their housing after two years. 

HUD also estimates housing providers will need to spend millions of dollars to implement these policies, although the proposal includes no additional funding  The cost alone guarantees less resources for housing poor and working people. 

Read NHLP’s full comment to HUD here.