The U.S. House Committee on Appropriations’ Subcommittee on Transportation, Housing and Urban Development (THUD) released its draft fiscal year (FY) 2025 spending bill for HUD programs on June 26. The bill proposes an overall cut to HUD programs of $2.3 billion, or 3%, from the funding provided in FY24. On June 27, the subcommittee passed the bill by voice vote. Members of the subcommittee were asked to hold amendments to the spending bill until the full committee review of the bill, scheduled for July 10.
While the bill proposes a slight boost to vital programs like Housing Choice Vouchers, it does not provide sufficient 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. For more details, see NLIHC’s full analysis and updated budget chart.
At a time when more households are struggling to afford the cost of rent, and more people – including seniors and families with children – are being pushed into homelessness, proposals that fail to provide the funding required to help address communities’ urgent affordable housing and homelessness needs threaten to exacerbate a growing crisis. Moreover, the recent Supreme Court ruling in Grants Pass v. Johnson paves the way for jurisdictions to arrest and fine unhoused people for sleeping outside, even when adequate shelter or housing is not available. Underfunding the very resources that ensure people can find and maintain safe, stable, affordable, and accessible housing, while simultaneously criminalizing people experiencing homelessness for engaging in life-sustaining activities – like sleeping – in public will result in local elected officials engaging in criminalization tactics that move people experiencing homelessness out of public view, rather than solving the root causes of homelessness.
Meanwhile, in the 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 have 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 last year to raise the federal debt ceiling in exchange for imposing caps on federal spending in FY24 and 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, Chair Murray and Vice Chair Collins were able to reach a side agreement to provide an extra $14 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 operation.
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 assistance to people who rely on these programs to keep a roof over their head, putting them at risk of housing insecurity, eviction, and, in the worst cases, homelessness.
Take Action: Tell Congress to Provide Significant Funding Increases for HUD in FY25
Your advocacy makes a difference! It is thanks to the hard work of advocates that in FY24 – at a time when programs faced cuts of up 25% – HUD received increased funding in the final spending bill.
Congress needs to keep hearing from you about the importance of affordable housing and homelessness programs! NLIHC is calling on Congress to provide the highest possible funding for HUD’s affordable housing and homelessness programs in FY25, including significant funding for NLIHC’s top priorities:
- Full funding to renew all existing contracts for the Housing Choice Voucher (HCV) program and expand assistance to 20,000 more households.
- $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 Prevention Grant Program.
- At least $1.3 billion for Tribal housing programs, plus $150 million for competitive funds targeted to tribes with the greatest needs.
Advocates can continue to engage their members of Congress 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!
- Using social media to amplify messages about the country’s affordable housing and homelessness crisis and the continued need for long-term solutions.
- 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.
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.