Congressional leadership granted Appropriations Committee leaders permission to begin negotiating a topline spending deal for a final fiscal year (FY) 2025 spending bill. Members have only until March 14 to reach an agreement, draft, and finalize all 12 overdue spending bills for FY25 or risk a federal government shutdown.
With the green-light from leadership, Appropriations Committee leaders – Senate Appropriations Chair Susan Collins (R-ME) and Ranking Member Patty Murray (D-WA) and House Appropriations Chair Tom Cole (R-OK) and Ranking Member Rosa DeLauro (D-CT) – can take a first step toward reaching a final spending agreement. The FY25 spending bill is almost four months overdue, and the process of reaching a final agreement will still take weeks.
For HUD programs, a proposed budget from the House would exact a $2.3 billion, or 3%, budget cut from the previous year, while the Senate proposed an $8.2 billion increase – an over 10% increase from the previous fiscal year. Even with the higher funding levels, the Senate bill is still expected to come up an estimated $800 million short of the full cost of voucher renewals.
Take Action!
Urge Congress to pass a final FY25 spending bill with increased funding for HUD’s affordable housing and homelessness programs
Insufficient funding, budget cuts, and long-term CRs have a devastating impact on affordable housing and homelessness assistance programs. CRs maintain spending levels from the previous fiscal year, but because the cost of affordable housing and homelessness assistance programs rises every year, increased annual funding for HUD programs is required to simply maintain the number of people served by these vital programs.
Advocates can use NLIHC’s resources to take action today and push Congress to pass increased funding for affordable housing and homelessness programs in FY25, including for NLIHC’s top priorities:
- Full funding to renew all existing contracts for the Housing Choice Voucher (HCV) program.
- $6.2 billion for public housing operations and $5.2 billion for public housing capital needs.
- $4.7 billion for HUD’s Homeless Assistance Grants (HAG) program.
- $100 million for the Eviction Protection Grant Program.
- At least $1.3 billion for Tribal housing programs, plus $150 million for competitive funds targeted to tribes with the greatest needs.
Use NLIHC’s toolkits and resources to take action on FY25 funding, including by:
- Emailing or calling members’ offices to tell them about the importance of affordable housing, homelessness, and community development resources to you, your family, your community, or your work. You can use NLIHC’s Take Action page to look up your member offices or call/send an email directly!
- Sharing stories of those directly impacted by homelessness and housing instability. Storytelling adds emotional weight to your message and can help lawmakers see how their policy decisions impact actual people. Learn about how to tell compelling stories with this resource.
- Using our “Oppose Dramatic Cuts to Federal Investments in Affordable Housing” toolkit: This toolkit includes resources, talking points, advocacy ideas, and other helpful information on defending funding for affordable housing and homelessness resources in the FY25 federal budget. Meet with your members and urge them to provide the most possible funding for these vital programs in any final FY25 budget agreement!
National, state, local, tribal, and territorial organizations can also join over 2,300 organizations on CHCDF’s national letter calling on Congress to support the highest level of funding possible for affordable housing, homelessness, and community development resources in FY25.