Includes Devastating Cuts to Public Housing Funding, Increases for HCV Renewals
Early this morning, Congressional appropriators issued a bipartisan “minibus” appropriations package, which included the FY 26 Transportation, HUD, and Related Agencies (T-HUD) funding bill. Overall, the bill provides $84.3 billion in discretionary funding for HUD—$7.2 billion above what the Department received in FY 25.
The entire text of the minibus is available on the House Appropriations Committee website; the HUD portion of the bill begins on page 612. Both House Republicans and Senate Democrats have also released summaries of the bill, respectively. The House has also published an explanatory statement.
Despite this overall increase, the bill proposes harmful cuts to public housing funding that will challenge HAs to provide safe and decent housing to the over 800,000 low-income families who reside in public housing.
The minibus package has already been negotiated by Republicans and Democrats in both the House and Senate. It is expected to pass Congress later this week, before the current Continuing Resolution expires on January 30.
Cuts to Public Housing, Increases for Voucher Renewals and Admin Fees
For HAs’ core programs, the bill proposes:
- Public Housing Operating Fund: $4.69 billion, a nearly 15% decrease compared to FY 25 enacted levels. This cut is only partially offset by Congress proposing $337 million for public housing shortfalls (compared to $25 million in FY 25).
- Public Housing Capital Fund: $3.2 billion, the same amount as was enacted in FY 25 and several prior fiscal years.
- Housing Choice Voucher Renewals: $34.96 billion, a nearly 9% increase over FY 25 enacted funding. This increase is roughly consistent with year-over-year Per Unit Cost (PUC) inflation in the voucher program.
- Voucher Admin Fees: $2.8 billion, a marginal 2.4% increase over FY 25 levels.
Outside of these core programs, the bill also includes:
- Over $600 million in funding for Tenant Protection Vouchers (TPVs)—a 78% increase over FY 25—and language allowing HUD to utilize TPV funding for calendar year 2026 assistance to families with Emergency Housing Vouchers (EHVs).
- A 10% increase in funding for Project-Based Rental Assistance (PBRA) contract renewals.
- Level funding for both the Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) and HOME programs. Both the Administration and the House proposed eliminating HOME funding.
- Funding for new Veterans Affairs Supportive Housing (VASH) and Family Unification Program (FUP) vouchers.
- Reduced funding for Choice Neighborhoods of $25 million, compared to $40 million in FY 25 and as much as $200 million in years prior.
Policy Riders Include PHADA-Backed Provisions
The bipartisan T-HUD bill contains several policies that PHADA supports, including several that Congress has included in prior appropriations acts. These include prohibitions on HUD from:
- Making any changes to the Annual Contributions Contract (ACC) without going through notice and comment procedures.
- Reissuing its prior solicitation for new Project-Based Contract Administrators, which PHADA and its industry partners opposed.
- Utilizing its Family Self-Sufficiency Achievement Metrics (FAM scores) to determine funding for FSS levels.
- Charging the cost of the Jobs-Plus Earned Income Disregard (JPEID) against grantees’ funding.
The bill also includes a rider mandating that HUD non-competitively renew all projects currently funded through homeless assistance grants—including Continuum of Care (CoC) funded projects—that expire in the first quarter of 2026 for a 12-month period. The rider also establishes a schedule requiring the Department to renew CoC-funded projects with contracts expiring later in 2026 if HUD does not issue new CoC awards by specified deadlines.
Disappointingly, though, Congress has not included language blocking HUD from proceeding with its poorly conceived cash management proposal. The bill does include, however, language requiring HUD to follow all relevant regulations requiring notice and comment for all new rulemaking actions. PHADA will continue to advocate for the Department to abandon cash management, which imposes unnecessary burdens on HAs and distracts agency staff from their core mission of providing safe and decent housing to low-income families.
PHADA will provide greater analysis of the T-HUD funding package in the next edition of the Advocate and will continue to update members regarding the latest appropriations news through the newsletter, Breaking News, and social media. Members with questions regarding appropriations can contact the PHADA policy staff at: policy@phada.org.