Overview of Funding Levels Impacting Key Homelessness & Housing Programs
The House & Senate Appropriations Committee released each of their FY26 reports out of their respective committees. While House appropriators did not take up many of the program proposals the Administration outlined in its budget request, funding levels were still insufficient to meet the current homelessness and housing crisis. Although the Senate also largely rejects the President’s proposed deadly budget cuts, and seeks to fund most housing and homelessness programs at a higher level than the House proposes, we need your continued support in advocating for the funding levels we need to solve homelessness across all housing and homelessness programs, and to avoid harmful policy changes.
Program | FY25 Level Final | FY26 House | % Change | FY26 Senate | % Change | FY26 Final |
Homeless Assistance Grants | $4.05 billion | $4.6 billion | 2.7% | $4.53 billion | 11.9% | – |
Tenant Based Rental Assistance | $36.05 billion | $35.27 billion | -2.2% | $37.97 billion | 5.33% | – |
Public Housing (Operating) | $5.50 billion | $5 billion | -9.1% | $4.87 billion | -5.5% | – |
Public Housing (Capital) | $3.41 billion | $2.29 billion | -32.8% | $3.20 billion | -6.2% | – |
Housing Opportunities with People with AIDS | $505 million | $505 million | 0% | $529 million | 4.8% | – |
Community Development Block Grant | $3.3 billion | $3.3 billion | 0% | $3.1 billion | -6.1% | – |
Project Based Rental Assistance | $16.89 billion | $17.13 billion | 1.4% | $17.80 billion | 5.4% | – |
HOME Investment Partnerships | $1.25 billion | $0 | -100% | $1.25 billion | 0% | – |
Indian Housing Block Grants | $1.111 billion | $1.111 billion | 0% | $1.11 billion | 0% | – |
Native Hawaiian Housing Block Grant | $22 million | $18 million | -18.2% | -$22 million | 0% | – |
Elderly Housing (Sec 202) | $931 million | $950 million | 2% | $972 million | 4.4% | – |
Housing for People with Disabilities (811) | $256 million | $262 million | 2.3% | $265 million | 3.5% | – |
Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity | $86 million | $29 million | -66% | $86.36 million | 0.4% | – |
U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness | $4 million | $0 | -100% | $2 million | -50.0% | – |
Total | $73.365 billion | $70.014 billion | -4.6% | $73.3 billion | -0.09% | – |
Top Policy Concerns
Although the Senate largely rejects the President’s proposed deadly budget cuts, and seeks to fund most housing and homelessness programs at a higher level than the House proposes, we need your continued support in advocating for the funding levels we need to solve homelessness across all housing and homelessness programs, and to avoid harmful policy changes. In the House bill, the following concerning policy “poison pills” emerged, which the Alliance commits to ensuring do not appear in the final bill language.
- Forces staffing cuts. The House bill cuts funding for U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) staff by 26%, reflecting the reductions implemented by Secretary Turner. Codifying this reduction in force will result in harmful delays and decreased efficiency, and will impact HUD’s ability to respond to disasters.
- Eliminates the HOME Investment Partnerships Program (HOME). The bill does not provide funding for HOME, the only federal block grant dedicated exclusively to the production of new affordable housing. (Note that this is not the same program as HOME-ARP, which Committee members mistakenly conflated and cited for having unspent funds).
- Undermines local decision-making. The bill withholds live-saving funds from “sanctuary cities” that do not comply with requests from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to notify federal immigration authorities with “advance notice of the scheduled release of an immigrant without legal documentation.”
- Provides insufficient funding to cover existing programs. Most accounts within HUD are either decreased or flat funded in this bill. This means that this budget does not address increased costs associated with rent and housing production, risking an even greater shortfall for existing programs and initiatives.
- Offers broad waiver authority. The bill allows the HUD Secretary to waive or create alternatives to statutory requirements on public housing and rental assistance. This change opens the door to implementing problematic conditions, such as time limits on rental assistance and work requirements.
- Defunds HUD-VASH. The bill adopts the President’s proposal to move HUD-VASH vouchers to the U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs (VA) as part of the new “Bridging Rental Assistance for Veteran Empowerment” (BRAVE) program.
- Slashes funding for Fair Housing programs. The bill decreases funding for HUD’s Office of Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity by $58 million from the previous fiscal year, for a total of $29 million.
- Removes a critical eviction protection. The bill does away with the requirement that owners of HUD-assisted housing must provide tenants at risk of an eviction notice at least 30 days prior to taking action.
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