The facts: affordable housing reduces poverty, stabilizes families, and boosts the economy, local tax revenue, and productivity. When workers can’t afford to live where they work, we all suffer.

Right now:

• 6.8 million more affordable housing units are needed for extremely low-income families

• 70% of all extremely low-income families pay more than half their income on rent

• Only 1 in 4 extremely low-income families who need assistance receive it

• More than 580,000 people are experiencing homelessness on any given night (1)

Project 2025 argues for turning the management of housing over to the states, cutting back on federal oversight, and gutting the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). HUD’s original mandate was to construct the nation’s affordable housing stock and promote “standards for decent housing and fair housing enforcement.” Project 2025 would end all that. 

Project 2025 wants to bring the private sector into public housing and open it up to “choice and competition.”

Project 2025 takes aim at public housing:

They say that housing is NOT a right. They even claim that public housing is bad because, they say, it creates a poverty trap, limits upward mobility, and discourages marriage. (pg. 503)

Who’s eligible for public housing?

• Project 2025 says that federal public housing should not be available for non-citizens (including mixed status families). 

• They want to impose work requirements for public housing.

• They plan to prioritize two-parent families in public housing

• Worst of all, they plan to put time limits on living in Project-Based Rental Assistance Housing (PBRA) – that affects 1.2 million families. (pg. 509) (2)

Turning public housing over to private landlords:

• Project 2025 wants to bring the private sector into public housing.

• They want to open up public housing for “choice and competition.” (pg. 511)

• They want to start a voucher system to expand use of private landlords and allow states and localities to control housing – without any federal regulation or oversight.

Tax cuts for corporations and the rich make affording a home even harder for most of us:

Project 2025 calls for a tax cut for corporations; Trump recently called for increasing tariffs on imported goods. Both of these policies affect lower earners and drive up the cost of housing even higher. 

— SO’D.