House Subcommittee's FY19 Spending Bill Maintains Higher HUD Funding

The House Appropriations Transportation-HUD (THUD) Subcommittee recently released its draft fiscal year (FY) 2019 spending bill. The House subcommittee bill maintains the 10 percent increase in HUD funding that was secured in FY18 with modest additional increases for FY19, and it ignores President Trump’s call for cuts to affordable housing.

Overall, the bill provides HUD programs with more than $11 billion above the president’s FY19 request. It also rejects rent increases, rigid work requirements, and time limits proposed by the president in his FY19 budget request. Despite the increased funding available to HUD, the amounts provided in the House bill are probably not enough to renew all existing contracts provided through Housing Choice Vouchers ($20.1 billion) and Project-Based Rental Assistance ($11.35 billion).