National Housing Law Project Releases Legal Analysis of HUD’s Proposed Equal Access Rule; Join Housing and LGBTQ+ Advocates for Webinar on Wednesday, May 20!
May 18, 2026
By Kayla Blackwell, NLIHC Senior Housing Policy Analyst
HUD’s Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM), “Equal Access to Housing in HUD Programs Revisions,” which seeks to drastically scale back the Equal Access Rule (EAR), is open for public comment until June 29 at 11:59 pm ET (see Memo, 5/4).
Advocates have two new resources to help inform their opposition to the proposed rule: First, the National Housing Law Project (NHLP) released a detailed legal analysis of the proposal, available here. Second, SAGE and the National Alliance to End Homelessness is hosting a webinar this Wednesday, May 20, from 2:00 pm to 3:00 pm ET to discuss the EAR and ways to protect this rule.
An analysis of the proposal by NLIHC staff shows that the proposal would eliminate LGBTQ+ protections across a range of HUD programs, not solely those under HUD’s Office of Community Planning and Development (CPD), as proposed in the Trump administration’s 2020 proposal. The 2020 proposal faced tremendous opposition, with over 66,000 comments submitted in the 60-day comment period, thanks to a coalition of housing and LGBTQ+ advocacy organizations mobilizing across the country. The 2020 proposal was never finalized, but advocates must again mobilize in defense of equal access to shelter and other HUD programs.
Read NHLP’s EAR and NPRM analysis, “Equal Access to Housing in HUD Programs Revisions: Legal Analysis.”
Register for the EAR webinar on May 20 here.
Explore Chapter 6 of NLIHC’s Advocates’ Guide 2026 to learn about LGBTQ+ access to housing assistance.