Gathered in one place, the numbers can look a bit bleak.
Recent data compiled in a new report from the Joint Center for Housing Studies of Harvard University shows record high numbers of renters and low-income homeowners can’t afford housing costs, along with other record-smashing signs of an unaffordable national housing market.
“We’re really at a point now where we need more affordable housing, but the market is not really very conducive,” said Chris Herbert, managing director of the research center. “I apologize; this is a dark report, but I think it’s important to understand the situation we’re in to be able to think about what to do about it.”
A record number of Americans are struggling with homelessness due to high housing costs, and disasters stemming from climate change are decreasing the size of the housing stock, which pushes rents up. Last year, the United States had a record high number of climate disasters that cost $1 billion or more, the report said.
“It all points to the fact that now is not the time to step back but to step up efforts to increase affordability, lower housing costs and address the ever-growing needs of the nation’s households,” said Daniel McCue, senior research associate for the Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies.
Yet as those needs are peaking, President Donald Trump’s administration has made cuts to the US Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) staff, grants and contracts as part of widespread cuts across the federal government. Lawmakers and an internal HUD report say the cuts are making it difficult for the agency to perform essential tasks, from preventing fraud to approving development projects.
To top off those cuts, the Trump administration is pitching to lawmakers a budget that would slash HUD’s budget in half and eliminate funding for many of its trademark programs, from public housing and housing vouchers to grants that help communities afford development projects and coordinate programs to fight homelessness.
HUD spokesperson Kasey Lovett declined an interview request from Streetlight but answered questions in writing, saying by email: “Your questions are leading in their phrasing and come off more as activism than journalism. As you can imagine, having a phone conversation and that type of access is something we typically offer to reporters who show discretion and fairness in their approach.”
Streetlight asked why it’s appropriate for HUD’s proposed budget to eliminate funding for public housing, housing choice vouchers and other assistance programs as Americans are dealing with record rates of homelessness and inability to afford housing.
Lovett didn’t answer the question and falsely claimed the budget proposal doesn’t eliminate funding for those programs.
“It is incumbent on media to accurately report this. Funding is being reimagined,” she said, then referenced the agency’s proposal to eliminate about $63 billion in funding for public housing, housing choice vouchers and other housing assistance programs and replace them with a potential $36.2 billion state rent assistance program. She also mentioned HUD’s budget proposal to eliminate $3.5 billion in homelessness funding for the Continuum of Care program and shift those funds to an expanded Emergency Solutions Grant program “to promote localized solutions.”
HUD plans to move its DC headquarters to Virginia but won’t share details on the cost, timeline or how the building’s current occupants—NSF workers—will be affected
HUD announced plans this week to move its headquarters from the Robert C. Weaver Federal Building in Washington, DC to the National Science Foundation’s (NSF) office building in Alexandria, Virginia. The move will displace NSF’s employees to a location the US General Services Administration (GSA), which manages federal properties, hasn’t identified, at a time none of the agencies have determined, either.
On Wednesday, a HUD press release said the move would save hundreds of millions of dollars by dodging long-needed repairs to its DC offices.
A day earlier, a press release from the union that represents NSF employees said HUD plans to make changes to the Alexandria building that directly benefit HUD Secretary Scott Turner, including a gym for Turner and his family and a yet-to-be-constructed executive dining room.
Lovett said HUD’s current offices have an executive dining room and gym. She said the agency doesn’t plan to build an executive dining room at the new headquarters, and a potential gym there would be available to all staff.
At a joint press conference Wednesday with Gov. Glenn Youngkin and Michael Peters, commissioner of the GSA’s Public Buildings Service, a reporter asked Turner to respond to the list of amenities the union described.
“That’s ridiculous,” Turner said, to laughter from Youngkin and Peters.
“And it’s not true,” the HUD secretary added. “This is not about Scott Turner. It’s never been about Scott Turner. I didn’t come into government to get nice things, you understand? … My family and I were already blessed before we came here. Working here is a sacrifice for all the people that work in the federal government, including the secretary, so this is about all the HUD employees. This is not about me.”
The union representing HUD’s headquarters workers doesn’t support the move to Virginia
After directing Streetlight to Turner’s comments from the press conference, Lovett said: “It is important to note that HUD’s local union, (American Federation of Government Employees) Local 476, is in support of this move. I would hope your reporting includes BOTH union perspectives.”
So Streetlight asked the union if that’s the case and if HUD employees would prefer to work in the Alexandria building.
“That’s an interesting interpretation of the Union’s position,” AFGE Local 476 President Ashaki Robinson said by email.
The union has long-standing concerns with health issues they believe are connected to the Weaver building, she said, and has spent at least a decade raising those concerns to HUD.
“We’ve consistently maintained that it is a sick building,” she said. “Until recently, the agency has barely acknowledged the concerns. Our position is clear: we support employees working in safe, healthy environments—free from contaminants that jeopardize their well-being.”
“However,” Robinson said, “we do not support forcing National Science Foundation employees out of their current building without a clear, transparent plan for where they will go or how they will be impacted.”
Although the union supports moving to another building, Robinson said they want the headquarters to stay in DC, which is more accessible than Alexandria for most employees at HUD’s headquarters.
“Any proposed relocation outside the city would pose a serious disruption to the workforce,” Robinson said.
HUD hasn’t answered the union’s questions about how much the move will cost, she said. Streetlight asked the agency for its estimated costs to relocate to Alexandria, and Lovett didn’t respond to the question.
“We do appreciate that the agency has finally acknowledged that the building is problematic,” Robinson said. “The union now questions when the agency will take the next logical step—allowing employees to work from home when needed to safeguard their health and well-being. It’s long overdue.”
Lovett didn’t respond when asked for comment on the union’s concerns. She also didn’t answer why HUD isn’t open to staff working from home instead of relocating the office to Alexandria.
Why did HUD select the NSF building in Virginia? Because, Turner said, it “was where we chose”
HUD held Wednesday’s press conference at the Alexandria building, drawing attention from NSF employees. Government Executive reported that HUD moved the press conference to a different room after NSF workers began gathering to watch the announcement.
Turner said HUD and GSA plan to “coordinate a staggered and thoughtful relocation process, which takes into account the current team and employees of this building and the work they do on a daily basis. We are all on the same team.”
But despite switching rooms, journalists could hear NSF employees booing and chanting “NSF” during the press conference, Government Executive reported.
About 1,800 NSF staffers work in the building, compared to about 2,700 HUD employees expected to occupy the space in the future. Peters said when the agency will move in is “still being worked out,” adding the transition plan—details of which have not been shared with the public—will “(allow) NSF to continue to function and perform as they do but also allow us to get HUD in this space as quickly as possible.”
Present to tout a pro-business environment in Virginia, Youngkin said the relocation was “a moment for us to say thank you and to celebrate.”
“I ask for God to bless this facility,” he said. “I ask Him to bless your employees, I ask Him to continue to bless the commonwealth of Virginia and I ask Him to bless the United States of America. We all know with His blessing, nothing can stop us.”
Youngkin said his team had worked with GSA on HUD’s move and had presented “lots of sites around Virginia that could be chosen by HUD or other agencies and departments.” He said they will “dust them off” to suggest as potential locations for NSF.
It’s not clear why this process is favoring Virginia over nearby Maryland. When a reporter asked why the agencies didn’t select Maryland for the relocation and opted for Virginia instead, Turner said: “Our answer is simple. We looked all over, and Alexandria, this building that we’re sitting in, was where we chose.” He added that the choice was “very deliberate” without explaining their decision-making process, other locations they considered or why they ultimately selected the NSF building.
Before Trump took office in January, he had campaigned to move 100,000 federal workers out of DC.
“HUD will be the first major agency headquarter relocation in the Trump administration’s effort to rightsize our federal real estate portfolio,” Peters said, adding that he hoped it was “the first of many such moves across the federal government.”
Contact Streetlight editor Mollie Bryant at 405-990-0988 or bryant@streetlightnews.org. Follow her reporting on Bluesky or by joining our newsletter.
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I WAS a HUD certified housing counselor. I started my career in 2013. I became certified in early 2018. I no longer work in the “industry.” DOGE randomly cutting grants and funding without a proper investigation of its programs fixed that. I spent years taking courses in counseling techniques, becoming financially literate, acquiring coaching techniques. I’ll most likely never work again educating first time homebuyers on purchasing a house and assisting them throughout the process. The administration is not telling the truth.
You have a credibility problem even though a lot of what you say is true. As a former newspaper reporter in a small town, college educated and professional, I know the importance of asking fair and impartial questions.
I can’t believe this is all going on I’ve tried and tried to get HUD and I still remain homeless. Not taking applications
President Trump doing exactly what I voted him in to do. Thank you.
HUD housing funds should be used to help families, seniors, people with disabilities, and people who are homeless.
How can you , Scott, call yourself a Christian when you are trying to send brothers and sisters to living on the street!! Shame on you! Repent!
We live in a small town Lebanon Indiana
Our property tax went thru the sky. Eli Lilly is opening next year. We can not afford our rent. It is 2 bedroom apartment 1250.00 that’s not counting the utilities 200.00 and not to say gas is 200.00 winter months. This is crazy. I have bought and lived in this town all my life never have seen the rise. I am on retirement make 1300.00 I can not afford it. Medical bills open heart surgery last year. What can I do. I can not work my knees are bad
These people are so heartless they don’t care about people only money.
Someone needs to answer some serious questions. Why these higher up can skirt these reporter’s tuff questions is bothersome.we need more hud funding now.why don’t these multi bullioners pay higher taxes.this just sucks.
This breaks my heart. So many families rely on HUD & now theres gonna be thousands more. I can’t even afford a studio apt that’s $500 because my ssdi is 1211/mo. I have no family to.live in & my kind landlord that let me skip the 3x amount so I would have a place to live has to sell & the new landlords want everyone out to remodel. I don’t even have a car. I’m more worried about my service dog than myself. This gov’t needs ro be shut down until they find a way ro help everyone. Not just the rich!
The biggest kicker with regards to the “affordable housing” is how someone defines “affordable”. My affordable isn’t your affordable, and isnt their affordable. My affordable would be $600 or so, like rent was back in 1996. Rent was always less than a mortgage. Then some joker got the idea to charge his mortgage cost to his renter so his FULL cost was covered, and then others thought that was genius and did the same. *Eye roll* Everything these days seems to operate on the assumption that people bring home high 5 figure salaries or even 6 figures. It just isn’t true. Let’s get back to the way costs used to be, when they were sane and reasonable.
I am 55, I am also on SSI because of disability. I have been homeless for 7 months. It is literally impossible to find housing. Wait lists are years long. Now it’s summer and very hot. I’m hoping I don’t end up getting heatstroke from living in my car. I have health issues.
I think everyone who works for HUD should loss their job and home. let them see what it’s like to actually be homeless and try to get any kind of assistance. For the last almost two years I have tried to get some assistance. Let’s just cut write to the real answers. There is no assistance!. The government positions are so over inflated and boast so highly of their positions that all these billions of dollars of grants fundings never actually make it to those in need of the assistance, but have the nerve to even scrubble over the fact that they have a gym or escutive dinning room. This why our nation is going homeless nobody in government does a damn thing anymore but bitch about having to do their job they all need ten assistance to do their work load and to blame them when anything comes into question
I say it’s time this country cuts all the damn fat, pork, whatever you wanna call these leeches of society.
FIRE THEM ALL !!
The welfare of the people of the U.S. are more important than a building for HUD. People are humans, they are God’s creation, he does not mean for his people to be hungry and homeless. Living from pillar to post, while the rich live in extravagant homes, high high rise apartments over looking lakes and beautiful parks and oceans, and Condos fit for dictators, Kings and Presidents. One day all evil doers will have to answer for every deed that they have committed on this earth to God’s people, while they are being treated less than humans. God wants the homeless, the hungry and the naked to be treated with all kindness and respect. It will be easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for the rich to make it into heaven, there has been a place set aside for all evildoers!
It pretty easy to see why, they never got any where with the previous administration, they are aware of or should already be aware of the present administration and how they operate. The previous administration didn’t give a DAMN about what was really going on with the HUD department. Try to see both sides. God bless everyone.
Thanks Streetlight for reporting the truth. Since January 20th all we’ve heard is one lie after another.
The government is now run in the form of an oligarchy and not a government for the people, and by the people.
If this continues for 3 1/2 more years, our democratic government will be history.
I went to share this article with my thoughts about it but among the 30+social media links to select from i could not find a link for TRUTH SOCIAL. So i guess i wont share the article or my thoughts about it.
I’m chronicley ill and in poor health if and feel very appreciative for the HUD program if it wasn’t for their help I would be on the street or dead. Thank you ĤUD.JEFFREY V.
Yes I believe low income housing is needed and the United States. But then there are people in rental companies that take advantage of the system and don’t check the residents income on a yearly like they should and people will stay there for years and save all kinds of money by cash cars take advantage of the system that’s the sad part when there’s so many families that need a home. On that note it needs to be more strict on the apartment buildings that don’t check the residents income on a yearly
So much that is happening within the federal government seems shameful and deceitful. The cruelty is clearly intentional and even extends to those expected to help carry out these massive cuts & austere “readjustments.” Democracy dies in darkness, have we no more bringers of light? America trembles in her aging beauty, held together with a dying hope.
Does this effect section 8 vouchers? I have a Housing Choice Voucher and having trouble finding landlords to accept it. Two people said they are “too much trouble”. Why issue government funds with limited ways to use them? -Frustrated Georgia resident.
Hi Melissa, I’m sorry you’re having trouble using your voucher. The proposed cuts do include Section 8 housing choice vouchers. We’ll know more about what will happen with HUD’s budget later this month. We wrote more about the potential cuts and proposed changes to vouchers here: https://streetlightnews.org/hud-budget/
This is ridiculous. Let the workers, work from home, while you refurbish the old building. We need housing! I don’t know what President Trump is thinking about!!?? Americans need help! I don’t have a place I can afford and I’m homeless. I can’t afford it! President Trump, seriously look at your Fellow Americans! We need some help!
Thank you for this comprehensive reporting.
HUD needs to help more veterans getting housing. I’m a permanent disabled veteran in a wheelchair. HUD needs to build more wheelchair accessible housing. I’m a homeless veteran that is staying with niece right now.
While they’re talking about cutting the program, they go home to a nice comfortable and beautiful home. And people are suffering. How much money do you need to put in your pockets cause that’s what you going to do. Shame on you, God see everything you’re doing. And believe me you’re going to reap.And Scott Turner, call yourself a man of God stop playing with God. .Psalms 1:1 said Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standing the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful. REPENT.
If jobs are not paying as they should it should we wouldn’t have a problem housing,food or medical it’s a lot less fortunate in America people we deal with the issue we need to do better it’s a lot of cut throats out here and don’t want the next one to accomplish anything