Share
Budget Cuts Series: Housing Aid
In Smart Dissent's Budget Cuts Series, we are detailing many of the White House proposed budget cuts. We seek to learn and share what's hidden beneath the surface. Today's subject is housing aid, a program operated by HUD to protect the most vulnerable in our nation, which is set to be cut drastically under Trump's proposed budget causing devastation for millions. But hidden beneath the surface is something not widely reported until last week.
Trump’s budget calls for sharply reducing funding for programs that shelter the poor and combat homelessness — with a notable exception: It leaves intact a type of federal housing subsidy that is paid directly to private landlords.
One of those landlords is Trump himself, who earns millions of dollars each year as a part-owner of Starrett City, the nation’s largest subsidized housing complex. Trump’s 4 percent stake in the Brooklyn complex earned him at least $5 million between January of last year and April 15, according to his recent financial disclosure.
While public housing assistance is crushed per the details below, the one program that benefits private real estate owners like Trump is spared.
The administration has proposed reducing HUD’s overall budget by $7 billion, or about 15 percent. That includes cuts to two of the other programs that, together with the program that pays landlords directly, serve the vast majority of people who get federal housing assistance.
The [proposed] budget calls for a nearly 29 percent cut, or $1.8 billion, to public housing and a 5 percent drop, or nearly $1 billion, in vouchers that allow tenants to use the aid on the housing of their choice....
In contrast, the program that directs money to Starrett City and other privately owned housing would see a reduction of about half a percent, or $65 million, from its $10.8 billion allocation.
Difficult to grasp that no one is talking about this.