Congress passed and President Biden signed into law a final fiscal year (FY) 2024 spending package that includes six appropriations bills, including the Transpiration, Housing and Urban Development (THUD) bill that funds HUD’s vital affordable housing and homelessness assistance programs. The bill – which provides HUD with $70 billion, or an $8.3 billion increase over FY23 – passed the House on March 6 by a vote of 339-85 and the Senate on March 8 by a vote of 75-22. See NLIHC’s analysis of the final FY24 spending bill and our updated budget chart for FY24.
With six of the 12 annual spending bills finalized, Congress will have until March 22 to finalize and enact the remaining six FY24 appropriations bills. Despite the work ahead in finishing the FY24 bills, House Budget Committee Republicans released on March 6 a budget resolution for FY25. “Budget resolutions” act as a blueprint to help guide Congress as it makes spending- and revenue-related decisions. While nonbinding – final budgets rarely, if ever, resemble a budget resolution – budget resolutions are a messaging tool for the parties in control of Congress and signal priorities for the year ahead. The budget resolution released by House Budget Committee Republicans proposes massive spending cuts to domestic programs of up to 30% over 10 years, including significant cuts to mandatory programs like Medicare, Medicaid, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), and the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program. The budget resolution does not single out HUD programs specifically, but HUD programs would be included among the domestic programs for which funding is cut over the next decade.
Take Action: Tell Congress to Provide Significant Funding Increases for HUD in FY25
Congress will have until October 1 – the beginning of the new fiscal year – to reach an agreement on, draft, and pass 12 new spending bills for FY25. While the House’s budget resolution is nonbinding, it nonetheless signals the probability of contentious spending fights during the next fiscal year. Appropriators will also need to draft their FY25 spending bills according to the limitations of the “Fiscal Responsibility Act,” the 2023 agreement to raise the federal debt ceiling for two years in exchange for capping FY24 spending at roughly FY23 levels and allowing for a spending increase of only 1% in FY25.
Your advocacy makes a difference! It is thanks to the hard work of advocates that in FY24 – at a time when programs faced cuts of up 25% – HUD received increased funding in the final spending bill.
Congress needs to keep hearing from you about the importance of affordable housing and homelessness programs! NLIHC is calling on Congress to provide the highest possible funding for HUD’s affordable housing and homelessness programs in FY25, including significant funding for NLIHC’s top priorities:
- Full funding to renew all existing contracts for the Housing Choice Voucher (HCV) program.
- Increased funding for public housing operations and repairs.
- Increased funding for HUD’s Homeless Assistance Grants (HAG) program.
- At least $20 million for the Eviction Prevention Grant Program.
- $1.3 billion for Native Housing.
Advocates can continue to engage their members of Congress by:
- Emailing or calling members’ offices to tell them about the importance of affordable housing, homelessness, and community development resources to you, your family, your community, or your work. You can use NLIHC’s Take Action page to look up your member offices, or call/send an email directly!
- Using social media to amplify messages about the country’s affordable housing and homelessness crisis, and the continued need for long-term solutions.
- Sharing stories of those directly impacted by homelessness and housing instability. Storytelling adds emotional weight to your message and can help lawmakers see how their policy decisions impact actual people. Learn about how to tell compelling stories with this resource.
National, state, local, tribal, and territorial organizations can also join over 2,200 organizations on CHCDF’s national letter calling on Congress to support the highest level of funding possible for affordable housing, homelessness, and community development resources in FY25.