The Appropriations Committees in both houses of Congress have passed fiscal year 2026 funding bills for the Department of Housing and Urban Development (combined with funding for the Department of Transportation). The full House and Senate have not yet considered these bills. If they do not resolve differences between their proposals for HUD and other parts of the government before FY26 begins on October 1, they will need to adopt a continuing resolution to keep the government open with funding continuing at this year’s levels.

— Information about FY26 funding for the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s rural housing programs is available here. —

Details of the funding levels in both bills are shown in the table below.

The House Appropriations Committee passed its bill, H.R. 4552, on July 17, with deep cuts in some HUD programs. It does not adopt the administration’s proposal to combine numerous programs into a block grant to states, but does include some of the significant cuts proposed in the administration’s budget: it would provide no funding for HOME or housing counseling, would reduce SHOP from $12 million this year to $9 million, and would drop fair housing from $86.4 million to $29.5 million. It would hold CDBG and Native American programs at current levels. It would also decrease HUD staffing by 26%.

The Senate Appropriations Committee passed its bill, S. 2465, on July 24.  In contrast to the House bill, the Senate would provide $1.25 billion for the HOME program. The Senate bill would also increase funding above this year’s levels for housing vouchers, project-based rental assistance, homeless assistance grants, Section 202 elderly housing, and Section 811 housing for people with disabilities. SHOP would be set at $13 million, up from $12 million in FY25, and the Rural Capacity Building program would receive $8 million. The bill would provide $3.1 billion for CDBG compared to this year’s $3.3 billion.

Neither the House nor the Senate would renew expiring Emergency Housing Program vouchers. The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities provides state-by-state and demographic estimates of the loss of Housing Choice Vouchers under the House and Senate Transportation-HUD proposals.

Table: HUD Funding Levels

 

Program ($ in millions)	FY23 Final	FY24 Final	FY25 Final*	FY26 Budget	FY26 House, H.R. 4552	FY25 Senate, S. 2465	FY25 Final
CDBG	$3,300	$3,300	$3,300	0	$3,300	$3,100
HOME	1,500	1,250	1,250	0	0	1,250
PRICE Manuf. Hsg. Prsrv.	225	10	10	0	0	10
Self-Help Hmownrshp (SHOP)	13.5	12	12	0	9	13
Veterans Home Rehab	1	0	0	NA	0	0
Rural Cap’y Bldg (RCB)	6	6	6	0	5	8
Tenant-Based Rental Asst.	27,600	32,387	32,387	0	35,268	37,355
VASH	50	15	15	0	15	15
Project-Based Rental Asst.	13,938	16,010	16,010	0	17,127	17,804
Public Hsg. Capital Fund	3,200	3,410	3,410	0	2,286	3,200
Public Hsg. Operating Fund	5,109	5,501	5,501	0	5,000	5,087
202 Hsg. for Elderly	1,075	913	913	0	950	972
811 Hsg. for Disabled	360	208	208	0	262	265
State Rental Assistance Program			Total for the programs to be combined in the SRAP: 58,429	31,787
Native Amer. Hsg.	1,020	1,344	1,344	877	1,344	1,354
Native Hawaiian	22.3	22.3	22.3		18.3	22.3
Tribal VASH	7.5	7.5	7.5	10	10	10
Homeless Asst. Grants	3,633	4,051	4,051	4,024	4,158	4,530
Hsg. Oppties for Persons w/ AIDS (HOPWA)	499	505	505		505	529
Fair Hsg.	86	86.4	86.4	26.4	28.5	86.4
Healthy Homes & Lead Control	410	345	345	0	296	296
Hsg. Counseling	57.5	57.5	57.5	0	0	57.5

NA: Not Available

* A full-year continuing resolution (CR), signed into law on March 15, 2025, funds the federal government through September 30, the end of fiscal year 2025. The CR instructs agencies to submit plans to Congress by late April showing how they will divide their appropriated funds among programs, but HUD’s plan seems not to be publicly available. This table assumes that all programs have the same funding in FY25 as in FY24, although that may not be the case.

More Details Released on Administration’s Proposed HUD Funding

On May 30, 2025, the White House released more details on its fiscal year 2026 budget request. Adding to the information in the “skinny budget” from May 2, this version provides numbers for individual programs. Fiscal year 2026 begins on October 1, 2025.

Reductions to HUD Programs

HUD’s HOME and Community Development Block Grant programs would be zeroed out, along with the competitive programs that serve Native Americans, the Native Hawaiian Block Grant program, HUD’s self-sufficiency programs, and the Pathways to Removing Obstacles (PRO) Housing program. The Fair Housing Initiatives Program, which funds work by nonprofit fair housing organizations, would be defunded as well, though the Fair Housing Assistance Program would continue to support work by state and local governments.

Several other HUD programs – Tenant-Based Rental Assistance, Project-Based Rental Assistance, Public Housing, Section 202 elderly housing, and Section 811 housing for people with disabilities – would be combined into a block grant to states with reduced funding. Rental assistance would be limited to two years for able-bodied adults and a majority of it would be required to go to elders and people with disabilities.

The skinny budget indicated that “short- and medium-term housing assistance … to homeless and at-risk individuals” would also be capped at two years.

The Continuum of Care, Housing Opportunities for Persons with AIDS, Emergency Solutions Grants, and other homeless assistance programs would be merged into an “expanded” Emergency Solutions Grant program, which would fund state and local governments.

The budget proposes to defund HUD’s Rural Capacity Building program.

HUD’s Section 4 capacity building program, which serves both rural and urban places, would support only Habitat for Humanity under the budget. For years, Section 4 has also enabled Enterprise Community Partners and the Local Initiatives Support Corporation to assist community organizations.

HUD’s Congressional Justifications document, which explains the budget request to members of Congress, reports that FY25 appropriations can support 8,597 full-time HUD staff, while the proposed FY26 levels would provide 6,340 full-time staff, a 26 percent reduction. It is not clear whether the stated FY25 staffing levels take into account some or all of the layoffs that have been attempted in calendar year 2025.

A New CDFI Program for Rural Communities

The budget proposes a new $100 million Rural Financial Assistance Program at the Treasury Department. Community Development Financial Institutions receiving these funds would be required to use 60 percent of their awards for rural areas, with a priority to investments and loans in places with poverty rates of at least 20 percent. At least 10 percent of total program funds would be targeted to persistent poverty counties, where poverty rates have been at or above 20 percent for 30 years or more.

Although rural-serving CDFIs would benefit from the new program, the budget would eliminate funding for the existing CDFI assistance programs, including the Native CDFI programs. The skinny budget stated that “the CDFI industry has matured beyond the need for ‘seed’ money and should at this point be financially self-sustaining.” The CDFI Fund recently indicated that only Congress could eliminate any of its programs: in a response to an executive order, the Fund stated that all of its programs are required by statute.

Disaster relief through FEMA, the Small Business Administration, and USDA would be reduced. The Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP) and the Community Services Block Grant would terminate.

The U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness would be eliminated, as would NeighborWorks USA (referenced by its official name, the Neighborhood Reinvestment Corporation). The Appalachian Regional Commission would continue, with lower funding, but other regional commissions would end.

Next Steps

This budget represents the first step in a lengthier process to set appropriations for FY26. Both the House and the Senate will develop their own appropriations bills, which may or may not resemble the President’s proposal. The House and Senate should resolve any differences between their bills and send final versions to the President for signature by September 30. If they do not meet that deadline, a continuing resolution would be needed to keep the government running.

The House Appropriations Committee has scheduled its subcommittee markup of the HUD appropriations bill for July 14, with full committee consideration on July 17. The Senate Appropriations Committee has not released a schedule as of June 3.

The budget reconciliation bill to set future spending and tax levels is a separate process, though it could have an impact on FY26 appropriations if Congress agrees on a bill.

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