The White House released the President’s FY 27 budget request on Friday, April 3. It does not repeat the 2026 proposal to block-grant major programs to the states, but still proposes overall cuts to HUD’s budget of more than $10 billion, a decrease of more than 12.7 percent. The budget request also proposes cuts to nearly every non-defense discretionary program, while requesting an increase for the Department of Defense (War) of more than $440 billion. As reflected in the chart below, the request includes small increases for most core housing assistance programs compared to the inadequate levels of FY 26.
- Public Housing Operating Fund increased from $4,687 to $5,377 million.
- Public Housing Capital Fund continues to be level-funded at $3.2 billion.
- Public housing shortfall fund is reduced from $337 million to $0.
- Voucher Contract Renewals increased from $34,957 to $35,565 million.
- Voucher Administrative Fees increased from $2,836 to $2,951 million.
- Tenant Protection Vouchers are reduced from $601 to $300 million
- Project-Based Rental Assistance is reduced from $17,984 to $17,111 million.
The budget request also includes $30 million for new Foster Youth to Independence (FYI) vouchers and proposes renaming it to the Melania Trump Foster Youth to Independence Initiative. No other incremental vouchers for HUD-VASH or Mainstream are requested.
The budget request does not seek any funding for other key HUD programs, including Choice Neighborhoods, HOME, CDBG, FSS, ROSS, and Jobs-Plus.
Other Budget Request Highlights
The budget requests an additional $30 million for a “Program Integrity Initiative” to “enhance the financial reporting, visibility, and oversight of recipients and subrecipients of HUD assistance.” The funding, “[would] be used to prevent Federal rental assistance going to deceased tenants and ineligible non-citizens, including illegal aliens, and eliminate funding to entities that use funding to proselytize woke agendas.”
Additionally, the FY 27 budget request calls for a drastic restructuring of Homeless Assistance funding, eliminating the Continuum of Care (CoC) program, and instead increasing funding for the Emergency Solutions Grant (ESG) program from less than $200 million to over $4 billion.
The administration is also proposing to eliminate funding for a range of other programs, including the Pathways to Removing Obstacles to Housing (PROHousing) program, the Fair Housing Initiatives Program (FHIP), including funding for fair housing training, and for translating HUD materials for non-English speakers, the Housing Opportunities for Persons with Aids (HOPWA) program, and the Housing Counseling program.
While this budget is not expected to be accepted by Congress, growing deficit pressures and other budget needs outside of HUD will create substantial challenges for Congress in crafting a viable budget for FY 27. PHADA will provide additional analysis in the next issue of the Advocate.
More information on the budget request can be found here and here.