Trump Budget Cuts Millions From NYC's Public Housing

NEW YORK, NY — Fixing New York City's public housing won't get any easier if President Donald Trump has his way. The Republican president's budget unveiled Monday would slash federal funding to the New York City Housing Authority by as much as $936 million, adding to the cash-strapped agency's financial burden and threatening tenants with a rent hike, city officials say.

Trump's plan would cut 18 percent of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development's budget, leaving it with $39.2 billion for the 2019 fiscal year. The budget doesn't give a penny to the federal Public Housing Capital Fund and makes big funding dents in subsidies local agencies like NYCHA, including rental assistance programs.

Eliminating the capital fund money would cost NYCHA $346 million, the housing authority says. That's a significant hit as NYCHA grapples with $17 billion list of overdue capital projects — including replacing failing boilers that have left tenants freezing.

HUD has proposed a 37 percent cut to the Public Housing Operating Fund, meaning NYCHA could lose up to $466 million in federal money that helps pay its bills. Proposed cuts to the Section 8 housing voucher program, which NYCHA administers using HUD money, would cost the authority another $123.8 million.

Overall, Trump's plan would slash up to half of NYCHA's federal operating funds, which accounted for 58 percent of the agency's budget last year, and make paying for long-needed fixes to the city's complexes even tougher.

Such deep cuts "would mean the dismantling of public housing and taking people’s homes away from them," NYCHA Chairwoman Shola Olatoye said in a statement.

The Trump administration also wants to stop capping public housing tenants' rent at 30 percent of their income. HUD wants to require "able-bodied individuals to shoulder more of their housing costs" in the name of encouraging to work, while promising mitigated rent hikes for seniors and disabled people, Trump's budget says.

That's a fundamental change to the federal government's funding model for public housing, which has reflected the 30-percent-of-income rent rate for decades, Olatoye said.

"Today, the President is walking away from that commitment and has shown once again that he is out of touch with most Americans’ experience," Olatoye said. "This proposal could lead to significant increases in rents per month when many are already struggling to make ends meet."

The budget adds to a growing mountain of problems on NYCHA's plate that includes a federal investigation of its failures to inspect apartments for lead paint and systemic breakdowns in heating systems across the city.

HUD's budget proposal emphasizes "self-sufficiency" among working-class and poor tenants while shifting investment in public housing to state and local governments and to the private sector.

The department wants to expand an initiative that allows housing authorities to hire private firms for renovation projects, which HUD says will result in "higher quality housing" for poor tenants.

HUD's budget also seeks funding for the department's "EnVision Centers," which aim to connect tenants with services that will help them "achieve self-sufficiency and deliver on the President’s commitment to a better future," according to the proposal.

"We need to think differently about how we can empower Americans to climb the ladder of success," HUD Secretary Ben Carson said in December.

The budget also eliminates money for Community Development Block Grants, which local governments across the country use for construction and infrastructure projects that they might not be able to otherwise afford. That program and others like it are "duplicative," HUD's budget says. Such projects should be handled by states and municipalities, it says, which are "better equipped to respond to local conditions."

(Lead image: NYCHA's Bronxdale Houses development is pictured in 2008. Photo from NYCHA via Flickr)