Note: Given the fast-changing nature of the legislative process, some information in this article may be outdated by the time of publication.
Fiscal Year 2025 Budget
The U.S. Congress is responsible for enacting a budget by the time the new fiscal year (FY) begins on October 1, 2024. As of the time of writing, Congress is likely to need to pass a stopgap funding extension (also known as a continuing resolution) in September because appropriations bills will not be completed by October.
The U.S. House of Representatives’ Committee on Appropriations reviewed and passed its draft FY25 spending bill for HUD programs on July 10 by a party-line vote, with 31 Republicans supporting and 26 Democrats opposing the proposed spending bill. While the bill proposes a slight boost to vital programs like Housing Choice Vouchers, it does not provide resources at the scale required to address the nation’s affordable housing and homelessness crisis and cuts key investments used by communities to address pressing housing needs.
Meanwhile, U.S. Senate Committee on Appropriations Chair Patty Murray (D-WA) has reportedly moved forward with distributing topline funding allocations – known as “302(b)s” – to the 12 appropriations subcommittees, including the Transportation, Housing and Urban Development (THUD) Subcommittee that governs HUD funding. However, these topline allocations do not have support from committee Republicans. Negotiations over topline spending stalled between Chair Murray and Vice Chair Susan Collins (R-ME) after the Senate’s Committee on Armed Services advanced a defense funding bill that would provide $28 billion more than the spending limit allowed under the Fiscal Responsibility Act (FRA), the agreement reached in 2023 to raise the federal debt ceiling in exchange for imposing caps on federal spending in FY24 and to limit funding increases to only 1% in FY25.
Senate Democrats, including Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Chair Murray, are insisting that any increase to defense spending above the caps must be paired with an equal increase to domestic spending. In FY24, Congress was able to reach a side agreement to provide an extra $69 billion in emergency spending above the FRA-dictated spending caps. Providing funding in FY25 over limits imposed by the FRA will be crucial to ensuring domestic programs – including HUD’s vital affordable housing and homelessness programs – have sufficient funding in the coming year to continue operations.
Funding for HUD’s programs must increase every year to maintain the number of people and communities served. Cuts to programs like Housing Choice Vouchers, Public Housing, and Homelessness Assistance Grants also reduce the number of people who are served by these programs or allow their homes to fall into disrepair, putting them at risk of housing insecurity, eviction, and, in the worst cases, homelessness.
While the road to enacting a robust FY25 spending bill for HUD’s vital affordable housing and homelessness resources is steep, together we have achieved historic resources and protections for renters, and together we can continue pushing Congress to ensure HUD’s programs and the people they serve are protected in the FY25 budget.
Supreme Court Punishes Unhoused People for Not Having a Home
The Supreme Court of the United States released on June 28 a ruling in City of Grants Pass, Oregon v. Johnson allowing jurisdictions to arrest and ticket unhoused people for sleeping outside, even when adequate shelter or housing is not available. NLIHC strongly condemned the ruling.
The Supreme Court’s decision comes as more and more elected officials choose to arrest, ticket, or fine people experiencing homelessness for sleeping outside, even when their jurisdictions have failed to provide adequate housing and shelter. According to HUD, more than 650,000 people experienced homelessness on any given night in 2023, the highest level on record. As homelessness has increased, many state and local elected officials face political pressure to respond to the crisis, but too many have turned to politically expedient, ineffective, and inhumane measures that punish unhoused people for not having a home.
Arrests and fines are not solutions to homelessness because they do not address the underlying causes of the crisis. Instead, these measures make it more difficult for people to access the affordable housing, health services, and employment necessary to become rehoused. Decades of research demonstrate that the most effective approach to addressing homelessness is to provide individuals with immediate access to stable, affordable housing and voluntary supportive services, such as case management, mental health and substance use services, and employment services to help improve housing stability and well-being. This approach – known as “Housing First” – has garnered bipartisan support and is credited with having cut veteran homelessness in half since 2010.
National Tenants Bill of Rights
NLIHC, the National Housing Law Project (NHLP), and the Tenant Union Federation (TUF) launched in June the National Tenants Bill of Rights (TBOR) in a major step towards shifting more power to renters and advancing tenant protections. Read the National Tenants Bill of Rights, section summaries, and a factsheet at: https://nlihc.org/national-tenants-bill-rights
Solutions to our nation’s housing crisis must include strong and enforceable tenant protections to help prevent housing instability and homelessness, redress long-standing racial and social inequities, and advance housing justice. Written with direct input from tenant leaders, people with lived experience of housing instability, housing law experts, and advocates nationwide, the TBOR provides a bold, legislative framework to enshrine tenants’ rights throughout their tenancy in private as well as federally assisted properties. The TBOR sets out seven essential rights that establish a baseline of tenant protections in the rental housing market. These rights follow a tenant’s experience from applying for housing and signing a lease to living in their home.
NLIHC urges advocates – including individuals, organizations, elected officials, and candidates for elected office – to endorse the National Tenants Bill of Rights. The endorsement link can be found at NLIHC’s Legislative Action Center: https://nlihc.org/take-action
Reforming Disaster Recovery Act
NLIHC is requesting signatures on a letter regarding the bipartisan “Reforming Disaster Recovery Act” (S.1686/H.R.5940). The bill would permanently authorize HUD’s Community Development Block Grant-Disaster Recovery (CDBG-DR) program, which provides flexible grants to help presidentially declared disaster areas rebuild affordable housing and other infrastructure, while also making critical reforms to ensure more efficient and equitable disaster recovery.
With the increasing frequency of hurricanes and flooding, we need Congress to establish a better way for communities to quickly access the funding they need. Delays hurt everyone and hit Black, Latino, and Indigenous people, low-income communities, people with disabilities, and immigrants with the fewest resources to rebuild particularly hard.
To sign the letter, visit NLIHC’s Legislative Action Center at: www.nlihc.org/take-action