House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) and Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) instructed appropriators to begin putting together the text of a year-long continuing resolution (CR) that would fund the federal government until September 30, the end of fiscal year (FY) 2025. CRs maintain the previous year’s level of appropriated funding for a period; in this case, the year-long CR would essentially allow appropriators to forgo finalizing FY25 negotiations and begin work on FY26. The federal government is currently operating under a CR, slated to expire March 14. Without another spending plan in place, the federal government will be forced into a partial shutdown.
Because CRs maintain level funding from the previous fiscal year, and because the cost of housing rises every year, long-term CRs act as a cut, reducing the number of people and communities served by HUD’s vital affordable housing and homelessness programs. However, under a full-year CR, the White House may also request that Congress provide certain programs with “anomalies,” or funding increases tacked on to the level funding provided through the CR. The White House sent a list of recommended anomalies to Congress on January 27, which included increased funding requests for limited HUD programs:
Homeless Assistance Grants: $259 million “for new projects to renew CoC projects in 2025,” while continuing to fund ESG at $290 million.
Rural Development Mission Area Programs: $34 million that “must be transferred to the Rental Assistance Grants to renew all existing 2025 contracts.”
Project-Based Rental Assistance (PBRA): $893 million to maintain current services.
Tenant-Based Rental Assistance (TBRA; includes the Housing Choice Voucher (HCV) program): $3.65 billion to maintain current services.
While the bill text of the year-long CR has yet to be released, depending on bill language, the proposed $3.65 billion increase to TBRA funding could be sufficient to cover the full cost of renewing all existing HCV contracts. NLIHC and our partners have been raising the alarm for months among advocates and members of Congress about the potential shortfall in HCV renewal funding – the Senate FY25 draft bill proposed a $2.9 billion increase to HCV funding, and the House FY25 bill would have provided a paltry $115 million increase. According to an analysis from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP), if enacted, the Senate bill would result in around 62,000 fewer households (about 141,000 fewer people) receiving rental assistance, while the House bill would cost almost 283,000 households (nearly 645,000 people) their housing voucher. This would represent the largest loss of vouchers since the program’s creation.
Moreover, under the confines of the “Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2023,” without a final FY25 agreement the federal budget may be subject to “sequestration,” or mandatory, across-the-board spending cuts across federal programs. However, sequestration would disproportionately hit the defense side of the federal budget, which would face a $40 billion cut under sequestration. The threat to defense spending is motivating lawmakers and the White House to find a work-around to avoid sequestration. House Appropriations Committee Chair Tom Cole (R-OK) noted that he received “verbal assurances” from the Trump Administration’s budget office that automatic spending cuts would be “turned off” under a full-year CR.
Democratic Appropriations leaders, House Committee Ranking Member Rosa DeLauro (D-CT) and Senate Committee Vice-Chair Patty Murray (D-WA), released a joint statement on Republican Leadership’s decision to move forward with a year-long CR, noting “it’s incredibly disappointing that Republican leadership is walking away from bipartisan negotiations to fund the government—and raising the risk of a shutdown in so doing."
Take Action
Urge Congress to pass a FY25 spending bill with increased funding for HUD’s affordable housing and homelessness programs!
Advocates can use NLIHC’s resources to take action today and urge Congress to pass increased funding for affordable housing and homelessness 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 important 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 people 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 representatives and urge them to provide the most possible funding for these vital programs in any final FY25 budget agreement.