January 17, 2025
NLIHC partners, allies, and friends,
Yesterday, we got a peek into the housing and homelessness policies that may be prioritized by the incoming Trump administration over the next four years during Mr. Scott Turner’s confirmation hearing to be the next Secretary of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) before the U.S. Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs. If the past is prologue, we can expect a number of policies that are antithetical to our goal of providing affordable housing for people with extremely low incomes, given what we saw in the first four years of the Trump administration.
In his testimony, Mr. Turner signaled support for several harmful policies that would increase housing instability and deepen racial inequity. He refused to commit to protecting federal housing and homelessness programs from significant spending cuts. Mr. Turner also advocated for increasing the role of private equity in the rental market, despite its track record of raising rents, imposing junk fees, evicting tenants, and failing to maintain properties in good condition. And he opposed HUD’s efforts to advance equity, blamed immigrants for our nation’s homelessness crisis, and endorsed new barriers to assistance, including work requirements.
I fully expect that many of the counterproductive policies pursued during the first Trump administration will be proposed again. Throughout its first term, the Trump administration proposed significant cuts to HUD’s budget, including cuts that would have resulted in an estimated 200,000 households losing the assistance they rely on to keep a roof over their heads. NLIHC and our national partners launched a powerful response, and advocates nationwide contacted their members of Congress to ensure they understood the impact these budget cuts would have on their communities and constituents. As a result, we successfully achieved funding increases for vital housing and homelessness programs.
Furthermore, the Trump administration proposed to charge higher rents and impose work requirements and time limits on low-income seniors, people with disabilities, families with children, and other people living in HUD housing. NLIHC and other national organizations representing tenants, housing providers, and developers mobilized our networks with a clear message: taking housing assistance away from struggling families will make it harder, not easier, to climb the economic ladder and make ends meet. Ultimately, the proposal failed in Congress.
The administration also proposed policies to target immigrant households, including policies meant to force mixed-status immigrant families either to break up or face eviction. Together, NLIHC and the National Housing Law Project launched the Keep Families Together campaign to oppose those changes. We mobilized more than 30,000 public comments in opposition to the proposed rule, effectively stopping it in its tracks.
When the Trump administration sought to divert scarce federal resources away from proven solutions to homelessness, NLIHC, the National Alliance to End Homelessness, and a host of national leaders responded. Together with shelter and service providers, advocates, and people with lived experience, NLIHC and the National Alliance to End Homelessness worked with congressional leaders from both sides of the political aisle to prevent the administration from implementing these policies.
Despite the concerns raised by parts of Mr. Turner’s testimony, it is worth noting his support for several solutions long advocated for by NLIHC that would help address our nation’s housing crisis. Those policies include:
- Increasing the supply of affordable housing by encouraging states and communities to reform zoning and land use restrictions that drive up housing costs.
- Ensuring federal disaster recovery efforts reach households and communities more quickly by permanently authorizing HUD’s long-term recovery program.
- Improving federal housing programs, including Housing Choice Vouchers, to make it easier for families to access affordable housing.Reducing homelessness among veterans and other populations by focusing on successful, proven solutions and working collaboratively with the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.
- Encouraging workforce development opportunities in low-income communities.
- Vigorously enforcing fair housing laws.
NLIHC, our members and partners, impacted people, and congressional leaders must again lead the charge to protect the lowest-income and most marginalized people and the housing investments they rely on to keep a roof over their head. Just as we did during the first Trump administration, NLIHC is prepared to mobilize in opposition to policies that we believe are detrimental to our goal of increasing affordable housing. We are also prepared to encourage and support any policies we believe will expand affordable housing for millions of Americans who live with the threat of housing insecurity.
Finally, as we begin our work in this new environment, I am committed to working with anyone who will work with us to turn our core principles into principled policy. At the end of the day, we are working to expand affordable housing to millions of Americans. That is what must be at the top of our minds every day for the next four years and the next 40 years. Our fight is to end housing instability and homelessness, redress long-standing racial and social inequities, and advance housing justice.
We cannot do this important work without you. It will take all of us. If you are not already a member of NLIHC, I urge you to join today. Become part of the national movement for housing justice and help us drive forward the long-term solutions we need to finally end America’s housing and homelessness crisis once and for all.
Your partner in purpose,
Renee M. Willis