NLIHC Urges HUD to Withdraw Work Requirements and Time Limits Proposed Rule

By Alayna Calabro, NLIHC Senior Policy Analyst and Renee Williams, NLIHC Senior Advisor for Public Policy 

On May 1, NLIHC submitted an organizational comment letter urging HUD to withdraw a Proposed Rule that would permit public housing agencies (PHAs) and HUD-assisted owners to adopt work requirements and time limits on assistance. Additionally, NLIHC submitted a separate sign-on letter opposing HUD’s proposal, with over 50 organizations joining the comment. The Proposed Rule was available for public comment from March 2 to May 1. According to regulations.gov, nearly 2,000 comments were received, with over 1,400 posted as of May 6.  

Background 

On March 2, HUD published a Proposed Rule that would allow PHAs and HUD-assisted owners to impose work requirements and time limits on assisted families. A recent Center on Budget and Policy Priorities analysis estimates that HUD’s proposed changes would jeopardize housing assistance for up to 3.7 million people, including 1.9 million children. This includes 2.1 million people in households where at least one person is working.  

HUD’s Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM), “Establishing Flexibility for Implementation of Work Requirements and Term Limits,” would allow “well-performing” PHAs and PBRA owners to adopt work requirements for “work-eligible” adults of up to 40 hours per week. “Work-eligible” adults are defined in the NPRM as individuals ages 18 to 61 who are not people with disabilities, pregnant, or enrolled in higher education. The “work-eligible” definition also excludes primary caretakers for: a person with a disability, a child under six, or a person who is temporarily incapacitated.    

The Proposed Rule would also allow for time limits on assistance after two years for “non-elderly, non-disabled families.” The definitions of “elderly family” and “disabled family” in current HUD regulations are written in a way that, under HUD’s proposal, individual household members who are elderly or who have disabilities could be impacted by a time limit if the household itself is considered “non-elderly” and “non-disabled.”  

The Proposed Rule would apply to the following programs: public housing, Housing Choice Vouchers (HCV), Project-Based Vouchers (PBV), and Project-Based Rental Assistance.  

NLIHC Opposes the Proposed Rule

NLIHC’s organizational comment and sign-on letter describe the harmful impact of the Proposed Rule and urge HUD to withdraw the rule. The letters discuss how: 

• The Proposed Rule would jeopardize housing assistance for millions of HUD tenants without addressing the root causes of affordability. Adoption of the work requirements and time limits outlined in the Proposed Rule would create more barriers to housing stability for individuals and families. The Proposed Rule would not address the affordable housing shortage or the structural barriers that leave families struggling to afford rent. 

• The proposed work requirements would impose programmatic red tape that can jeopardize housing assistance. If household members are working, they will have to document their work and track their compliance. This will prove particularly difficult for residents with jobs that have inconsistent weekly hours. Other households will be forced to demonstrate eligibility for exemptions, which will likely create barriers for residents who are older and those experiencing disabilities. Each additional documentation requirement creates another opportunity for missed compliance, putting residents’ housing assistance at risk. 

• The Proposed Rule has insufficient exemptions. The exemptions in HUD’s proposal have significant gaps. HUD’s proposal does not exempt caretakers for children ages six and older from work requirements, meaning that individuals must navigate childcare, work, and other responsibilities without adequate supports. Additionally, the Proposed Rule’s age range fails to account for the needs of older adults not yet 62, including the fact that older workers often face employment discrimination and are forced into early retirement. There is also no parent or caretaker exemption for time limits. Furthermore, under the Proposed Rule, elderly or disabled people could still be displaced due to circumstances beyond their control, since an entire household could face displacement because of one member’s noncompliance. 

• The Proposed Rule is rooted in false, harmful stereotypes about HUD-assisted families. Most people in HUD-assisted housing who can work, do work. However, many working people still need rental assistance to help them afford housing because housing costs far exceed wages. The baseline policies HUD proposes are far stricter than what Moving To Work agencies have chosen to adopt, or even the benchmarks in the president’s proposed FY27 budget. This approach makes HUD’s proposal appear punitive and overly focused on removing families from assistance, even when doing so could force them into homelessness. 

• HUD’s proposal would impose additional burdens, and in some places, unfunded mandates on housing providers. To adopt time limits and work requirements, housing providers would need to pay for and provide supportive services, track work requirement compliance and length of tenure, evaluate exemptions, and more. HUD announced no new or additional oversight to monitor implementation and no funding to provide the supportive services required by HUD. While the proposal does not mandate the adoption of work requirements or time limits, HUD is attempting to empower states to mandate these policies. In jurisdictions that adopt laws mandating these policies, implementation will be required. This will force an unfunded mandate upon housing providers who are already operating with limited resources. 

Additionally, NLIHC’s organizational comment explains that HUD fails to demonstrate that work requirements and time limits have a proven track record of success in Moving to Work agencies. The comment also emphasizes that a substantial body of evidence on work requirements in safety net programs—including the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, Medicaid, and the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program—directly conflicts with HUD’s claim that work requirements are effective at increasing employment and earnings. 

Read NLIHC’s organizational comment and sign-on comment. 

Learn more about HUD’s Proposed Rule here.