Republican appropriators in the U.S. House of Representatives released yesterday topline allocations for fiscal year (FY) 2024 spending bills. The House is proposing to cut more than $22.12 billion from the Transportation, Housing, and Urban Development (THUD) bill, which funds crucial HUD rental assistance, homelessness assistance, and community development programs – a cut of more than 25% from FY23-enacted levels.
Take action today, with NLIHC and the Campaign for Housing and Community Development Funding (CHCDF) to tell Congress that cuts to affordable housing and homelessness programs are unacceptable! NLIHC and our partners at CHCDF are hosting a national Day of Action, today, during which advocates around the country can contact their members of Congress and demand they protect – not cut – federal funding for HUD’s and USDA’s affordable housing and homelessness programs.
Use this CHCDF call-in script to help create your message to Congress, and urge your representatives to reject calls for steep program cuts and instead provide significant funding for HUD programs, including NLIHC’s top priorities:
- Implementing full funding for the Tenant-Based Rental Assistance (TBRA) program to renew all existing contracts.
- Providing full funding for public housing operations and repairs.
- Fully funding homelessness assistance grants.
- Providing $100 million for legal assistance to prevent evictions.
- Funding a permanent Emergency Rental Assistance (ERA) program.
- Maintaining funding for competitive tribal housing grants for tribes with the greatest needs.
You can also use these other NLIHC resources to call, email, and tweet your members of Congress:
- Federal, state, tribal, and local organizations can join over 2,000 other organizations on CHCDF’s annual 302(b) letter, calling on Congress to provide the highest possible funding for HUD’s and USDA’s affordable housing, homelessness, and community development programs.
- Use NLIHC’s Legislative Action Center to send a personalized email to your members of Congress highlighting NLIHC’s priorities in the FY24 budget.
- Check out NLIHC’s advocacy toolkit, “Oppose Dramatic Cuts to Federal Investments in Affordable Housing,” for talking points, sample social media messages, and more.
Background
Just days after Congress passed and the President signed into law an agreement to raise the federal debt ceiling in exchange for holding FY24 spending at FY23 levels and capping growth for domestic spending in FY25 at a mere 1%, Republicans have announced they will mark up FY24 spending bills to FY22 allocations.
Caving to the demands of far-right House Freedom Caucus members, Republican leaders in the House – including House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) and House Appropriations Chair Kay Granger (R-TX) – agreed to mark up FY24 spending bills to FY22 levels, imposing significantly deeper cuts to domestic programs than the already austere caps in the debt ceiling agreement. This proposal will lead to increased poverty and hardship, especially for people with the lowest incomes.
House Republicans pushed for cuts to FY22 funding in their “Limit, Save, and Grow Act,” which passed the House along party lines on April 26. According to HUD Secretary Marcia L. Fudge, such cuts would “represent the most devastating impacts in HUD’s history” and “make it impossible to stave off mass evictions.” Nearly 1 million households could lose HUD rental assistance, and nearly 120,000 fewer people experiencing homelessness would be served. USDA also released a statement stating that up to 63,000 rural households would lose rental assistance if spending in FY24 were capped at FY22 funding levels.
This proposal comes at a time when poverty, housing instability, and homelessness are increasing across the nation, as families continue to navigate the economic fallout of the pandemic and pandemic-era assistance runs dry. According to NLIHC’s research report The Gap, there is a national shortage of over 7.3 million rental homes affordable and available to people with the lowest incomes. Recent data from NLIHC’s report Out of Reach show that workers must earn at least $28.58 per hour – almost four times the federal minimum wage – to afford a two-bedroom rental home at fair market rent without spending more than 30% of their income on rent.
It is crucial that Congress not enact policies that increase poverty and hardship, especially for people with the lowest incomes. Members of Congress must look beyond dollar amounts and grasp the human cost of cutting and capping federal spending for affordable housing and homelessness programs. Such steep budget cuts would make it much harder for people experiencing homelessness to find stable homes and put nearly 1 million of the lowest-income renters at risk of eviction and homelessness by cutting their housing assistance. Housing provides the foundation for stability in all other aspects of life. Many households, if they were to lose HUD assistance, would struggle to put food on the table, stay healthy, and access employment and educational opportunities.
Please reach out to the NLIHC Field Team at [email protected] with questions. Thank you for your advocacy!