Top Takeaways
Potential Government Shutdown Looms: The U.S. federal government faces a partial shutdown starting March 15 if the Senate fails to pass a continuing resolution (CR) to extend funding through September. Senate Democrats oppose the House’s CR due to concerns over housing cost increases and Republican amendments, making its passage not a sure thing.
Risk to Affordable Housing Programs: If the current CR passes, crucial federal housing assistance programs will face significant cuts, which would exacerbate the affordable housing shortage and increase the risk of homelessness for millions of low-income Americans.
Long-Term Threats to Housing Affordability: Fiscal year 2026 poses additional risks, with potential deep cuts to HUD and other housing assistance programs. Advocates warn of threats to rental assistance programs, increased tenant rent burdens, and other broad impacts on low-income communities, and are urging “cross-issue” cooperation to protect funding.
The United States federal government is flirting with a partial shutdown that could begin Saturday, March 15, at 12:01 a.m. if the Senate doesn’t approve a continuing resolution (CR) that would extend funding, at similar levels to FY 2024. Top Democrats on the House Committee on Appropriations issued a statement on Tuesday condemning the House’s CR for raising housing costs. Senate Democrats have largely called the legislation coming from the House “terrible,” and said they prefer a shorter-term CR that extends government funding for one month without Republican amendments such as removing Congress’s ability to vote on tariffs.
It’s unclear whether Democrats will allow a vote to move forward on the House’s bill (60 senators must agree to end debate and vote). Recent reporting from The Hill had indicated that resistance CR was weakening, but after a caucus meeting on Wednesday, minority leader Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said his party was united against the legislation.
To make it through, a CR needs 60 yeses for ending debate and moving to a vote (most likely all Republican senators and at least eight Democrats), and then a majority to vote for the bill itself. If that doesn’t happen, the government will shut down until a compromise bill is passed.
As of now, here is the outlook for the remainder of fiscal year (FY) 2025, as well as predictions for how FY 2026 might shake out.
FY25 (March 15–Sept. 30, 2025)
Neither the Senate Democrats’ monthlong CR nor the House’s longer-term legislation substantially reduce Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) funding—though the House’s does make cuts to a few programs, and funds others at levels that don’t allow them to keep up with increasing costs.
While keeping roughly status quo for now is better than slashing the budget of an already underfunded agency like HUD, Michael Kane, a long-time housing activist and current chair of the Leaders and Organizers for Tenant Empowerment (LOFTE) Network, points out that inflation and increasing rents will make it impossible to pay 2025’s bills with funding set at 2024 levels. “So if the dollar amount is frozen,” he says, “that’s a cut in the number of people served.”
The federal government is already shorting affordable housing providers by withholding previously appropriated money. Beyond that, HUD will experience at least the following if the Senate OKs the CR currently on the table, according to the National Low Income Housing Coalition:
- Loss of approximately 32,000 vouchers from the HOME Tenant-Based Rental Assistance program, which covers the difference between what a household can afford to pay and the local rent standards.
- A cut of approximately $168 million to HUD’s Homeless Assistance Grants program, which intervenes to prevent homelessness and provide emergency shelter, rapid rehousing, transitional housing, and permanent supportive housing.
- A $3.29 billion cut from HUD’s Community Development Fund, mostly as lost “earmarks,” which are congressional requests for community development projects.
But what’s appropriated in a CR may still never make it to the intended recipients thanks to the rescission process, says a former senior policy and budget expert at the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) who also previously worked at HUD (and requested anonymity due to concerns about retaliation by the current administration).
After a proposed federal budget is approved, the president can request that Congress withhold approved funding by submitting what’s known as a “special message.” Congress has 45 in-session days to consider the request. Both chambers must approve the requests, which they can do in whole or piecemeal. Trump did it during his first term, and the former OMB analyst believes he’ll likely do it again.
“At the end of the last Trump administration they sent up a series of rescission packages, primarily in the foreign assistance to Ukraine, if you remember that whole kerfuffle,” they said. “So if the past is precedent . . . advocates absolutely should be on the lookout for a rescissions package that includes HUD funding.”
FY26 (Oct. 1, 2025–Sept. 30, 2026)
Even if HUD doesn’t take a huge hit this year, fiscal year 2026 is just around the corner. The full-year budget for fiscal year 2026, in a perfect world, would be ready for a vote on or before Oct. 1, but an on-time vote hasn’t happened since 1996. Instead, Congress functions by passing massive omnibus bills and CRs that carry over spending from the previous year. (In fact, the federal government spent half the years between 1996 and 2016 operating under 175 different short-term funding bills.)
Affordable housing advocates, including Kane, recommend vigilance around plans for FY 2026—regarding both HUD’s budget and larger programs that prevent or alleviate poverty. “That’s where the deeper cuts are going to be proposed,” Kane says, adding that Russell Vought helming the OMB again is “the biggest threat.”
“The programs that affect low-income people are the most vulnerable because low-income people have the least clout in the political system. So that’s what I’m worried about,” Kane says. “[Legislators are] under tremendous pressure to pay for tax cuts to the rich and increase funding to the Pentagon unnecessarily. They would have to cut discretionary programs for poor people, and they would have to go for entitlements like Medicaid, Medicare, and ultimately, Social Security.”
In the last Trump administration, Vought “proposed deep cuts. He proposed to eliminate all funding for HUD rental assistance programs—project-based Section 8, tenant-based Section 8, and public housing—over a 10-year period,” Kane says. “We were fighting it like crazy.” Among Vought’s proposals were increasing the tenant-paid portion of Section 8 rents from 30 to 35 percent of a tenant’s income and eliminating 200,000 vouchers, “and that was just in year one,” Kane says.
But Kane also says he sees the threat of deep HUD funding cuts as opportunities for “cross-aisle or cross-issue cooperation.” If the Trump administration slashes funding for project-based or tenant-based vouchers, for example, property owners and landlords who rely on those subsidies for supplementing rents in large multi-family apartment complexes won’t be able to make their debt obligations.
“And then we’ve got entire buildings in default. So getting a few Republican senators to speak up for the continuation of funding to at least cover inflation, preferably meet housing needs, and swat down anything like work requirements, that has to be the focus,” Kane says. “That’s where local tenant organizations and tenant leaders need to focus: on allies—including [property] owners and management companies.”
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as someone who relies on section 8 hiusing vouchers to pay my otherwise unaffordable rent, this all sounds terrifying.
On behalf of myself, and millions of others unable to ask for your help, Please do protect these programs!
I have two young boys. 2 and 7. I work two jobs. I can barely afford my rent I got picked for a section 8 housing voucher in September 2024 and didn’t hear anything until February 2025 that there was no funding and I won’t be receiving my voucher. I am on verge on homelessness again. I am a DV survivor. This is the scariest thing in my life and I dont know what the future holds. It’s not fair us hard working Americans are being penalized because of the people above us stealing money and doing things we cannot control. Please please dont take section 8 away ive been waiting on my voucher for 7 years finally got it to be taken away when I need it most.
I feel that DOGE & the Trump administration don’t care how many American citizens they hurt and contribute to the probable of death to many people here in the US by cutting housing and other essential programs for millions. The total cost of rent for the low income apartment that I live in is higher than what I receive for SSI each month and I would be homeless without housing assistance and would face a risk to dying on the streets from exposure because the shelters only let you stay up to 3mo at a time because the lack funds. Plus where I live there’s no camping ordinance for the area. Add to that cuts to food assistance programs, Medicaid and Social Security would mean little to no food on a daily basis, no medical care or prescriptions to treat health issues, and probably no way to pay for anything. I would love to be able to work again but I am unable to. So for me, I am being threatened with a death sentence and I’m sure many other senior citizens and disabled individuals feel the same as I do.