The Trump administration hopes to significantly reduce funding for federal rental aid, which helps thousands of California families afford homes.
The plan is part of the President's 2026 budget proposal, requiring a 43% reduction in funding for various programs that label it “dysfunctional”, including public housing and voucher programs, commonly known as Section 8.
Millions of programs use the program nationwide, and the government says it is seeking to make states more responsible and flexible in how they operate, while also proposing “capable adults” to receive only two years of rental assistance, ensuring that most of the funds go to seniors and people with disabilities.
The proposal raises sharp criticism of advocates of low-income families who say it will worsen the housing affordability crisis, increase homelessness, and unfairly punish their bosses who simply don’t have enough workers to pay.
According to the National Low Income Housing Alliance, minimum wage workers can work 40 hours a week, with only 6% of U.S. residential apartments in 6% of U.S. counties. Without a county, these workers can afford two-bedroom apartments.
“Millions of people will receive assistance,” said Sonya Acosta, senior policy analyst at the Center for Budget and Policy Priority for the Left-leaning think tank. “We heard during President Trump’s campaign that his plan was to make housing more affordable, and that’s the opposite.”
In addition to cutting rent aid, the government is also trying to cut some money that has been shelved for homelessness programs.
For the moment, these suggestions are just wish lists.
Congress is the government department that writes and approves the budget, even though the president makes recommendations and can veto the budget instead of signing it into law.
Acosta said she has supported housing aid for years and she hopes it will continue, but said there is no guarantee that Trump's request will be denied.
“I don't think we can ignore anything the government is doing right now,” Acosta said.
In a statement, Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Scott Turner criticized the federal government for being “too bloated, bureaucratic, to function effectively” and called the president’s budget a positive step that would simplify existing plans to “serve the American people at the highest standards.”
The budget proposal targets two major rental assistance programs, which, even now, are not funded to recruit all eligible people, many on the waiting list for years.
One of them is traditional public housing – government-owned properties, such as Nixon Gardens in Watts, provide affordable rents for low-income families.
The second is a voucher program commonly known as Section 8. The federal government launched an alternative to public housing project in the 1970s, which was criticized for isolating low-quality schools and other communities with poor service.
Unlike public housing, subsidies under Article 8 can be relocated with low-income tenants so that they can find housing for private landlords. Tenants usually pay about 30% of their income to rent, and the rest of the federal government will charge the rest.
According to the Center for Budget and Policy Priority, more than 5 million U.S. households use some form of federal rental assistance, of which 560,000 live in California.
The Trump administration’s budget proposal will significantly reduce funds for lease aid programs and change the way funds are allocated.
Today, the federal government allocates funds to local housing authorities every year so that they can run public housing, Section 8 and other programs.
The government said it wants to stop this practice and instead send rent assistance to each state “block grants” so that 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 government said it will encourage states to provide their own funding to “ensure that recipients of similar levels can benefit from block grants.” However, this can be difficult considering the national budget constraints.
Generally speaking, Edward Ring, co-founder of the conservative California Center for Policy, praised the idea of block grants and hoped they could grant directly to local governments so that they, rather than Sacramento, could try the solution.
Lin said it would be beneficial for those who really need it, cutting overall funding to “short term”. But such cuts could put pressure on California to reform, he said it would need to make the country naturally more affordable, namely, to reduce government regulations to allow more housing construction, including new suburbs on vacant land.
“If we can lower housing prices, we can also support people who need to reduce assistance,” Lin said.
Turner responded to the idea of pressure in his statement, saying the president’s budget proposal would ensure that state and local governments “have skin in the game and carefully consider how their policies hinder or promote self-sufficiency and economic prosperity.”
National Multifamily Housing Commission Chairman Sharon Wilson Geno said the trade group supported efforts to cut the Traditional Tape Festival to simplify Section 8’s property owners, but she called the plan “critical” and hoped Congress could consider the impact of the proposed cuts.
Matt Schwartz, CEO of the nonprofit California Housing Partnership, believes the idea of rental assistance grants is a threat to the program, saying he successfully makes millions of dollars of housing affordable.
He said members of Congress tend to be more willing to cut such vague state grants than cuts specifically for a single program that helps their constituents.
Schwartz said the damage to Trump's proposal would go beyond landlords who rely on Title 8 and developers who are affordable housing. That's one of the reasons he thinks Congress won't accept it.
“Their areas will be seriously damaged by these areas [cuts] – Whatever your political philosophy is,” Schwartz said, adding that Democrats can stop the measure through litigation in the Senate. “I can't see you getting 60 votes for anything that looks like this. ”
Lourdes Castro Ramirez, CEO of the City of Los Angeles Housing Administration, said some plans for the reduction have recently helped the city reduce omniscient homelessness, including tents and other temporary structures.
“These cuts could reverse our progress and further intensify local efforts to address the affordability, housing supply and homelessness crisis,” she said in a statement. She said in a statement that the agency looked forward to working with the government and Congress to “promote effective housing solutions.”
