Do Trump and the Congressional GOP Actually Support Low-Income Housing?

Nope. They Just Want to Shower Government Benefits on Wealthy Investors

You are known by the company you keep.

The “One Big, Beautiful Bill Act” pushed by Donald Trump and Congressional Republicans aims to lay waste to health care, food assistance, and living-wage jobs. So it is revealing that some housing programs not only escaped the ax but received increased funding.

The Low-Income Housing Tax Credit is targeted for expansion under the bill, as is the Opportunity Zone program. Why? Because, as this newsletter and many others have written, these programs enrich the already-wealthy, and don’t do much to help those in need.

As we wrote in December, 2023, the program known as LIHTC (pronounced lie-tek) is a very expensive tax credit for wealthy investors that does not produce housing that is affordable for millions of poor people. “LIHTC is doing nothing to address homelessness and housing poverty,” Kayla Laywell from the National Low-Income Housing Coalition has told Shelterforce. Some state lawmakers have gone even further, saying LIHTC is nothing more than “legalized theft of government assets.”

As for Opportunity Zones, this January we wrote about the Reverse Robin Hood Effect of the program, which like LIHTC benefits wealthy investors and has been labeled a subsidy for gentrification.

In its excellent biweekly newsletter, the Poverty and Race Research Action Council reports on these proposed increases (the bill passed the U.S. House but has not been voted on in the Senate) and points out LIHTC’s many deficiencies. But PRRAC sensibly says LIHTC should not be abandoned without a program lined up to replace it.

The programs that should replace LIHTC are increased public housing or, less ideally, expanded housing choice vouchers, both of which deliver the true affordability that LIHTC does not.

One current client of ours is poised to move into a LIHTC property at a rent only slightly below market rent. The government has generously subsidized the creation of that housing with tax benefits. But the rent is still unaffordable at her income and several times more expensive what she would pay in public housing or with a voucher. I worry she will end up back in eviction court.

In the meantime, it seems like a good rule of thumb: any program called “low-income” that has the support of Trump and his allies deserves all the skepticism that it receives.

Interview About Lessons From Eviction Court

A big thank you to Abriana Herron and the Indianapolis NPR affiliate WFYI for a great conversation about the new book Lessons From Eviction Court and how we can end homelessness and shutter our eviction courts. The seven-minute interview can be heard here.