The Trump administration is stopping a $ 1 billion program that helps preserve affordable homes, threatening projects that keep tens of thousands of habitable units for low -income Americans, according to a document obtained by Associated Press.
Action is part of a Range of cuts and Freezing financing In the Department of Housing and Urban Development of the United States, in large part To the direction of President Donald Trump and the Efficient Efficiency Department of Elon Musk, which have shaken the affordable housing industry.
Preserving these units receives less attention than ribbon cuts, but it is a central piece of efforts to address the nation’s housing crisis. Hundreds of thousands of low rental apartments, many of them aged and need urgent repair, run the risk of being taken from poor Americans.
The program has already granted money to projects that would update at least 25,000 affordable units throughout the country, and the details of how they will not be clear.
An HUD spokesman did not respond to repeated requests for comments. But an internal document reviewed by the AP said the program is “ending” in the Doge address. Two HUD workers, who have knowledge of the program and spoke with the AP on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals, confirmed the directive to close it.
On its face, the green and resilient modernization program of more than $ 1 billion, approved by Congress in 2022, is intended for energy efficiency improvements. It is distributed in subsidies and loans to affordable housing owners who need update, including replacement or repair of heating and cooling systems, leaks with leaks, insulation or aged windows, or flooding.
But money plays a much more important role in preservation of affordable units.
Projects that use funds are required to keep their buildings affordable for up to 25 years. Money is also used to attract other investments for important repairs and renovations necessary to maintain habitable buildings.
It is like building a Jenga tower, where one of the subsidies or loans of the program, which vary from hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars, is a lower block and each new block is another investment, experts said.
This money “was essential for the project to join,” said Mike Essian, vice president of American Community Developers, Inc., who received funds for several affordable housing projects. “The projects will fail and these are projects that are already difficult to finance.”
The news has been a shake for Al Hase and Joan Starr, tenants in an apartment building in Vancouver, Washington, full of other older people with low income with few or no option, most of which live with less than $ 33,000 a year.
Smith Town apartments of 170 units, built in the 1960s, need updates, including their first sprinkler system throughout the building. The $ 10 million prize was a financial kick for its project of almost $ 100 million, and is cited in applications for other investments.
The potential loss “seriously puts our ability to provide an update to current systems,” said Greg Franks, president of the Property Management Company, adding that the work is “necessary to maintain the habitability of this building based on its age and keep it viable for another 60 years.”
“We depend on those $ 10 million,” he said.
They are also Hase and Starr, a couple withdrawn from their 70 years who have lived there for 16 years.
They fill their balcony with geraniums and petunias, the Eagles tell in a nearby park and live on the few income of Social Security. They learned about the possible loss of financing in a letter from the apartment management company.
“It’s a bit scary, it’s almost like receiving news from a doctor that something is going to take your life in six months or a year,” Hase told the AP in a phone call.
“We are from a time when salaries were not there, so our Social Security …”, he said, pause. “Apest,” he launched in Starr.
“If I was born as a rich man,” he said. Starr added: “We are only normal people.”
“And we are the lucky ones because we have two social values,” he said.
But being lucky they still don’t have much in the current rental market. “Prices keep up, I have looked, and there is no way,” he said.
“It’s the difference between living and not being able to live,” he said.
Hud’s lack of communication about the future of organizations sent by the program in search of contingency plans, although approximately two dozen projects will still obtain funds, an HUD employee to the AP said. The rest are in limbo.
“If these funds are not reinstated, we will certainly look for other funds to fill that void. The reality is that it will take time and will inevitably make the project more expensive, ”said Travis Phillips, at the Housing Development Center on Financing for Smith Tower.
It is the position several hundreds of other affordable housing projects are now in 42 states, the district of Columbia and Puerto Rico.
“With all honesty,” said Michelle Arevalos, administrator of Smith Tower, “if this building was not here, many of our people would probably not have home.”
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Bedayn is a member of Associated Press’s body/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a non -profit national service program that places journalists in local writing rooms to report covered issues.
