The Trump administration wants to sharply reduce funding for federal rental assistance that helps hundreds of thousands of California households afford a home.
The plan, part of the president’s 2026 budget proposal, calls for a 43% reduction in funding available for a variety of programs it labels “dysfunctional,” including public housing and the voucher program commonly known as Section 8.
Millions use the programs nationwide, and the administration said it is seeking to give states more responsibility and flexibility on how they are run, while also proposing “able bodied adults” only receive rental assistance for two years, thus ensuring most funds flow to the elderly and disabled.
The proposal has drawn sharp criticism from advocates for low-income households, who say it would worsen the housing affordability crisis, increase homelessness and unfairly punish workers whose bosses simply don’t pay them enough.
According to the National Low Income Housing Coalition, minimum-wage workers can afford a market-rate, one-bedroom apartment in only 6% of U.S. counties while working 40 hours a week. There’s no county where such workers can afford a two-bedroom.
“Millions of fewer people would receive assistance,” said Sonya Acosta, a senior policy analyst with the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a left-leaning think tank. “We heard during President Trump’s campaign that his plan was to make housing more affordable and this is really doing the opposite.”
In addition to the cuts to rental assistance, the administration is seeking to cut some money specifically set aside for homeless programs.
For now, the proposals are just a wish list.
Congress is the government branch that writes budgets and approves them, though presidents offer recommendations and can veto a budget instead of signing it into law.
Acosta said there’s been bipartisan support for housing assistance for years and she hopes it will continue, but said it’s not guaranteed that Trump’s requests will be rejected.
“I don’t think we can ignore anything that the administration is doing right now,” Acosta said.
In a statement, Housing and Urban Development Secretary Scott Turner criticized the federal government as “too bloated and bureaucratic to efficiently function” and called the president’s budget a positive step that will streamline existing programs in order to “serve the American people at the highest standard.”
The budget proposal targets two main rental assistance programs, which even now aren’t funded at levels to enroll everyone who could qualify, leaving many on wait lists for years.
One is traditional public housing — government-owned properties such as Nickerson Gardens in Watts that offer affordable rent to low-income households.
The second is a voucher program commonly known as Section 8. It was launched in the 1970s by the federal government as an alternative to public housing projects, which were criticized for segregating poor families in neighborhoods with low-quality schools and other substandard services.
Unlike public housing, the subsidy under Section 8 can move with low-income tenants so that they can find housing with private landlords. Tenants typically pay around 30% of their income toward rent, with the federal government picking up the rest.
More than 5 million American households use some form of federal rental assistance, with 560,000 of those residing in California, according to estimates from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.
The Trump administration’s budget proposal would dramatically decrease funding for rental assistance programs and change how money is distributed.
Today, the federal government allocates money each year to local housing authorities so they can run public housing, Section 8 and other programs.
The administration said it wants to stop that practice and instead send one rental assistance “block grant” to each state, so they can “design their own rental assistance programs based on their unique needs and preferences,” which could mean maintaining public housing and Section 8 or trying something different.
The administration said it would encourage states to provide funding of their own to “ensure that similar levels of recipients can benefit from the block grant.” However, that could prove difficult given state budget constraints.
In general, Edward Ring, co-founder of the conservative California Policy Center, praised the idea of block grants and hoped they could be given directly to local governments so they, not Sacramento, could experiment with solutions.
Ring said cutting overall funding for rental assistance would not be beneficial “in the short run” for people who really need it. But such cuts could pressure California to undertake reforms that he said are needed to make the state naturally more affordable, namely reducing government regulations to allow more home building, including new suburbs on vacant land.
“If we could bring down the price of housing, we would be able to also support people who need assistance with less money,” Ring said.
Turner, in his statement, echoed the idea of pressure, saying the president’s budget proposal would ensure state and local governments “have skin in the game and carefully consider how their policies hinder or advance goals of self-sufficiency and economic prosperity.”
Sharon Wilson Geno, president of the National Multifamily Housing Council, said the trade group supports efforts to cut red tape to streamline Section 8 for property owners, but she called the program “critical” and hoped Congress will think about the impact the proposed cuts would have.
Matt Schwartz, chief executive of the nonprofit California Housing Partnership, views the idea of a rental assistance block grant as a threat to programs he said successfully make housing affordable for millions.
He said members of Congress tend to be more open to cutting such vague state grants compared with slashing funding specifically targeted to a singular program that helps their constituents.
Devastation from Trump’s proposal would extend beyond tenants to landlords and affordable housing developers who rely on Section 8, Schwartz said. That’s one reason he believes Congress won’t accept it.
“Their districts would be significantly harmed by these [cuts] — no matter your political philosophy,” Schwartz said, who added Democrats could stop the measure by filibuster in the Senate. “I don’t see any way you get 60 votes on anything that looks like this.”
Lourdes Castro Ramirez, chief executive of the Housing Authority of the City of Los Angeles, said some of the programs targeted for reductions have recently helped the city reduce unsheltered homelessness, including the presence of tents and other makeshift structures.
“These cuts could reverse our progress and further strain local efforts to solve the affordability, housing supply, and homelessness crisis,” she said in a statement, adding the agency looked forward to collaborating with the administration and Congress “to advance effective housing solutions.”
This story originally appeared on LA Times
