President Donald Trump’s budget proposal may put additional pressure on the affordable housing market in the midst of a shortage that is quickly reaching crisis levels.
The budget request for the Department of Housing and Urban Development has taken aim at two grant programs that have been essential to the sector in recent years. The Community Development Block Grant program was responsible for the allocation of $3B to affordable housing and infrastructure projects annually. The program was consistently used to facilitate the creation or revitalization of affordable housing and infrastructure, or was used to aid nonprofit organizations such as Habitat for Humanity, Curbed reports.
The HOME Investment Partnerships program provided just under $1B annually to communities in need across the U.S. and went toward easing housing issues by providing rental assistance to low-income families. The two grants, along with the Public Housing Capital Fund used for the upkeep of public housing, have been cut entirely in the proposed budget.
While the Public Housing Operating Fund used for public housing unit maintenance has been retained, it has been reduced from $4.4B to $2.8B, Curbed reports.
The budget does provide for $100M in rental assistance demonstration, a fund meant to help local housing authorities convert public housing units into rental assistance units, but experts say without the funding stream from PHCF and a stripped-down version of the PHOF, the additional allocation of funds will not make a difference as the capital was typically combined with RAD to create and maintain suitable, affordable homes.
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