Housing Voucher Program Facing Significant Cuts

As chaos continues to envelop the federal government and its housing department, tenants and landlords reliant on housing vouchers are facing a concerning future.

Layoffs, funding shortfalls and new regulations under President Donald Trump’s second administration are posing significant challenges for the federal Housing Choice Voucher program, America’s largest rental assistance initiative for low-income families, Bloomberg reported.

Commonly known as Section 8, the program helps 2.3 million qualified households afford housing. Only about one-quarter of eligible families receive assistance as many spend years on waitlists as the program struggles to keep pace with rising rents nationwide.

Congress is debating funding levels that could further impact the program’s reach. The House set aside $32.8 billion in funding for the program, a modest $115 million increase. The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, however, estimates the program needs an additional $4.3 billion to maintain current service levels due to increased living costs.

The former Democratic-controlled Senate had approved a $2.9 billion increase, which still falls short of needs and puts 62,000 households at risk of losing assistance.

A government shutdown is looming in a couple of weeks if lawmakers can’t agree on a spending plan. A possible one-year continuing resolution would keep stopgap funding levels, for less funds than the House proposed.

If the House budget prevails, approximately 283,000 households could eventually lose voucher access in what CBPP calls “the most severe funding shortfall in the history of the voucher program.”

Local housing authorities, which administer the voucher program, are already feeling the strain. Some have stopped issuing new vouchers and many lack sufficient reserves to weather a government shutdown beyond a month.

The uncertainty has also raised concerns about how leadership at the Department of Housing and Urban Development will approach the program; some appointees reportedly support additional work requirements for voucher recipients.

Landlords reliant on housing vouchers recently received a sour taste of what a funding shortfall could look like when Trump’s proposed federal funding freeze resulted in New York City officials briefly delaying payments to thousands of landlords at the start of the month.

— Holden Walter-Warner