The White House on May 2 delivered a “skinny” budget request to Congress to describe what the Trump administration would like Congress to fund programs in fiscal year 2026 (FY26), which begins October 1. A full, detailed FY26 request is expected in the second half of May from the White House.

Department of Housing and Urban Development Elements

The skinny budget request, which is devoid of details to fully understand its reasoning and impact, asks Congress to block grant the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) rental assistance programs to states and provide them with 42% less in funding to run these programs compared to FY25 funding.

The programs that would be included in this block grant are Project-Based Rental Assistance, Section 202 Housing for the Elderly, Tenant-Based Rental Assistance, Public Housing, and Section 811 Housing for Persons with Disabilities.

In the request, the White House seeks a $26.718 billion decrease for these programs in FY26, a 42% cut to the $63.5 billion these programs were provided in FY25. The request would provide around $36.3 billion to states to run these programs (again, this amount is 42% less than HUD has in FY25 to run these programs).

Our analysis:  the budget’s proposals, in a mere five sentences, would, if adopted, ruin and undermine almost one hundred years of federal rental assistance efforts. Excerpt from the proposal: “The Budget empowers States by transforming the current Federal dysfunctional rental assistance programs into a State-based formula grant which would allow States to design their own rental assistance programs based on their unique needs and preferences. The Budget would also newly institute a two-year cap on rental assistance for able bodied adults, and would ensure a majority of rental assistance funding through States would go to the elderly and disabled. A State-based formula program would also lead to significant terminations of Federal regulations. In combination with efforts related to opening up Federal lands, this model would incentivize States and the private sector to provide affordable housing. This proposal would encourage States to provide funding to share in the responsibility to ensure that similar levels of recipients can benefit from the block grant,” the request says.

The request includes no additional information about the block granting of federal rental assistance programs.

LeadingAge is not swayed into favoring the proposal by its language to “ensure a majority of rental assistance funding through States would go to the elderly and disabled.”

HUD’s rental assistance programs serve more than nine million people, some of whom are older adults but others of whom work in aging services, have children who will one day work or need the services of aging services providers, work and support the many stakeholders that make aging services the high quality programs that they are.

LeadingAge strongly opposes efforts to block grant HUD’s rental assistance programs and cut their funding so drastically.

In a letter introducing the request to Congress, White House Office of Management and Budget director Russell Vought says the Trump administration looked to devolve federal programs to state governments across the federal landscape. “We also considered, for each program, whether the governmental service provided could be provided better by State or local governments (if provided at all). Just as the Federal Government has intruded on matters best left to American families, it has intruded on matters best left to the levels of government closest to the people, who understand and respect the needs and desires of their communities far better than the Federal Government ever could,” Director Vought says.

In addition to its request to decimate HUD’s rental assistance programs, the request asks Congress to eliminate all funding for the HOME program, for the Community Development Block Grant program, and the Fair Housing Initiatives Program and to cut homeless assistance funding.

Overall, the White House’s request seeks to cut 22.6% of all nondefense discretionary funding across the federal government.

House and Senate committees will have HUD Secretary Scott Turner testify about his FY26 HUD request over the next few or several weeks, depending on the timing of the transmission of the White House’s detailed FY26 request to Congress.

The White House’s budget request materials are here.

Watch for a LeadingAge action alert on HUD funding coming soon.