The U.S. Congress enacted and President Biden signed into law last week the fiscal year (FY) 2024 spending bill for HUD, along with five other appropriations bills, bringing to a close the FY24 process for HUD. However, Congress must still pass six remaining FY24 spending bills before midnight on March 22 or risk a partial government shutdown. Since HUD’s budget has already been passed, HUD programs would not be impacted by the potential shutdown. See NLIHC’s analysis of the final FY24 spending bill and our updated budget chart for FY24.
Despite the work remaining for FY24 appropriations, Congress and the White House are already turning their attention to the fiscal year ahead. With the current fiscal year half over, Congress has only until October 1 – the start of FY25 – to draft and pass 12 new appropriations bills for FY25. Republican members of the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on the Budget released on March 6 a budget resolution for FY25 calling for spending cuts as high as 30% to domestic programs, and President Biden released on March 11 his FY25 budget request, which called for essentially level funding for HUD programs in FY25. The president’s budget request also included a mandatory spending proposal that would invest $258 billion in affordable housing, vouchers, and other vital programs. However, this proposal does not have the political backing necessary to be passed by Congress.
Take Action: Tell Congress to Provide Significant Funding Increases for HUD in FY25
Congress will have until October 1 – the beginning of the new fiscal year – to reach an agreement on, draft, and pass 12 new spending bills for FY25. Appropriators will also need to draft their FY25 spending bills according to the limitations of the “Fiscal Responsibility Act,” the 2023 agreement to raise the federal debt ceiling for two years in exchange for capping FY24 spending at roughly FY23 levels and allowing for spending increases of only 1% in FY25.
Your advocacy makes a difference! It is thanks to the hard work of advocates that in FY24 – at a time when programs faced cuts of up 25% – HUD received increased funding in the final spending bill.
Congress needs to keep hearing from you about the importance of affordable housing and homelessness programs! NLIHC is calling on Congress to provide the highest possible funding for HUD’s affordable housing and homelessness programs in FY25, including significant funding for NLIHC’s top priorities:
- Full funding to renew all existing contracts for the Housing Choice Voucher (HCV) program.
- Increased funding for public housing operations and repairs.
- Increased funding for HUD’s Homeless Assistance Grants (HAG) program.
- At least $20 million for the Eviction Prevention Grant Program.
- $1.3 billion for Native Housing.
Advocates can continue to engage their members of Congress by:
- Emailing or calling members’ offices to tell them about the importance of affordable housing, homelessness, and community development resources 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!
- Using social media to amplify messages about the country’s affordable housing and homelessness crisis and the continued need for long-term solutions.
- Sharing stories of those 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.
National, state, local, tribal, and territorial organizations can also join over 2,200 organizations on CHCDF’s national letter calling on Congress to support the highest level of funding possible for affordable housing, homelessness, and community development resources in FY25.