Administration Proposes to Cut HUD Budget by $8.6 Billion

February 10, 2020               By: Affordable Housing Finance

Home and CDBG programs are targeted for elimination.

The Trump administration has again released a budget proposal that cuts funding for longtime public housing and community development programs.

The fiscal 2021 plan requests $47.9 billion for the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), $8.6 billion less than the enacted level for this year. Under the proposal, the HOME and Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) programs would be eliminated.

The administration has tried to kill the programs and reduce funding for other HUD initiatives before, but Congress has maintained its support, with HOME receiving $1.35 billion and the CDBG fund receiving $3.43 billion in 2020.

On the public housing front, the proposal requests $28.4 billion for the Office of Public and Indian Housing, about $4 billion less than this year. HUD is seeking to combine the public housing operating and capital funds into a “public housing fund,” which would receive $3.57 billion. That’s about $3.8 billion less than the enacted levels for the two funds in 2020.

HUD says the decrease is partly due to moving funds to a proposed Moving to Work (MTW) account. There are 39 current MTW public housing authorities (PHAs), and HUD expects to add 30 new PHAs, which would serve 94,000 of the approximately 915,000 public housing units, says the budget plan...............Read More