Proposed HUD cuts could strip rental assistance from thousands of Georgians

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For Rashawna Hurd and her five children, Christmas is a big deal. “It’s when we create memories,” she said.

“On Christmas Eve, we do matching pajamas, we do hot chocolate and gingerbread houses. We play games, make cookies, and watch movies. We usually cook a big meal, and our family comes over — the whole nine yards,” Hurd reminisced.

On Christmas Day, naturally, her kids expect presents under a tree — and they expect to open them at home.

This past Christmas, however, Hurd’s big family slept in her 2013 Nissan Pathfinder. It’s a sizeable SUV, but by no means equipped to house four children ranging from 5 years old to 17, plus a one-year-old infant.

About a week earlier, Hurd’s family had been kicked out of their townhome in Monroe, after the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) decided that the black mold blooming behind their walls — and apparently making the kids sick — posed such a safety hazard that the place was uninhabitable.

“Our Christmas was ruined,” Hurd told Atlanta Civic Circle in an interview. They unwrapped gifts at her brother’s place, and then piled into the car to sleep.

Nearly two long, trying months later, Hurd is relieved that HUD has found another house for them to move into. It’s all the way out in Douglasville, about an hour away from their former townhome — but at least her kids will be able to return to school, she’ll be able to return to work, and in many ways, they’ll all be able to start anew after an agonizing stint living in the Pathfinder and on family members’ couches. 

But more challenges could be on the horizon for families like Hurd’s, who rely on the federally funded Housing Choice Voucher Program (Section 8) to pay rent. HUD’s voucher program was designed to ensure low-income renters don’t have to pay more than 30% of their monthly income on rent. The federal vouchers cover the rent above that amount.

Congress only has until March 14 to pass a final FY 2025 spending bill, and the House’s proposed budget would cut HUD funding by $2.3 billion, or 3%, at a time when housing costs nationally are skyrocketing. HUD is the primary source of rental assistance to low-income Americans, which it disburses through grants to local housing authorities to administer.

The House’s proposed cuts to HUD funding would place nearly 750,000 Americans at risk of losing critical rent voucher assistance, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a progressive national think tank. Families with children would be hit especially hard. 

For Georgia, the proposed House spending bill could strip HUD rent subsidies from 7,900 households — or nearly 20,000 people — and 3,600 of those are families with kids, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities estimates, according to Will Fischer, the organization’s housing policy director. 

“This is going to force them to divert resources from other basic needs, like food or medicine,” he told Atlanta Civic Circle. “Some people will have to take on debt in order to cover that, in addition to other expenses.”

And any rent increase, however minor, could put families on the streets. “If we lose this [HUD voucher] assistance, these people are going to be paying 50, 60, or even 70% or more [of their monthly incomes] on rent, and that’s something that is just too much for most households with low incomes to be able to afford,” he said. 

“A lot of these folks could end up becoming homeless,” Fischer added.

And those figures don’t account for how many people could be abruptly displaced if the Trump administration’s federal grant funding freeze eventually takes full effect.

“More than 18,000 Atlanta residents who rely on [federally backed] housing currently do not know how their rent will be paid next month,” Mayor Andre Dickens said when the president issued an executive order on Jan. 28 calling to temporarily halt all federal grants and loans. (The proposed freeze is still ensnared in a federal court battle.)

Scarce HUD vouchers for rent help

Hurd has decent health insurance from her job as a mental health specialist, so trips to the doctor to treat her kids’ respiratory illnesses, potentially from the mold in their former townhome, didn’t squeeze her wallet too much.

Sechita McNair isn’t so lucky.

McNair, an Uber driver in Atlanta, has never taken advantage of Section 8 benefits. But her family is now experiencing its own housing turmoil after they were evicted in November. McNair said her finances took a hit after her husband’s unexpected death in May 2023, and then her young daughter’s death last fall. She and her surviving three children also lost their healthcare coverage. 

“I have been doing everything as a single parent,” she said in January. “I have been reaching out to everybody — from the school, from the city — telling them, ‘I need help. I’m trying to bury her.’”

McNair buried her daughter on Sept. 11. She and her children spent Thanksgiving living in a rental property she owns in Clayton County. That meant she lost the rental income she’d been counting on to defray expenses, while she was off work and handling the costs of deaths in the family. 

“I work as a rideshare driver,” McNair said. “I couldn’t work at that point, because I had three children at home grieving, and I had to prepare for a funeral all by myself.”

For people like McNair, temporary rental assistance can be a financial life raft — but it’s also looking even more inaccessible. There is already a backlog of Georgians seeking federal rent vouchers, since HUD funding to the local public housing authorities that administer them isn’t enough to cover all who need rental assistance. Atlanta Housing has a waitlist of over 20,000 people seeking voucher help, for instance. 

That backlog will grow if Congress cuts HUD funding. A shortfall in HUD funding would increase the need for housing funding from local governments and philanthropies.  But even well-funded nonprofits wouldn’t be able to handle that kind of spike in demand, said Fischer of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. 

“This would be by far the deepest cut in the history of the voucher program,” Fischer said. “The magnitude of these cuts is so big, and the role of the federal government in helping people to afford housing is so central, that it’s going to be more than the states, localities, and nonprofits are likely able to make up.” 

Besides the threat of homelessness for families like Hurd’s and McNair’s, Fischer said, housing instability exposes their kids to other risks, like having to switch schools repeatedly, which affects their educational performance, or getting placed in foster care. It also increases sleep problems and behavioral difficulties, he said.

“When we provide stable housing to a family with a kid, we’re providing a lot more than just the housing,” he said. “It’s a stable platform for that kid to develop and grow.”