Funding for HUD?s rental assistance programs would lapse if shutdown drags on Entering its third week, and with no end in sight, the partial federal government shutdown is putting millions of low-income tenants who depend on funding from the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) at risk.
On January 4, HUD sent a letter to 1,500 landlords who house tenants under various rental assistance programs, including Section 8 vouchers and project-based rental assistance, urging them not to initiate evictions for tenants over HUD funding that has now lapsed.
According the Washington Post, HUD officials didn?t realize this funding had lapsed on January 1, and the shutdown prevents them from renewing it. HUD officials are now tapping reserve funds and ?scouring for money,? according to the Post. About 95 percent of HUD?s 7,500 employees have been furloughed. The remaining 5 percent are exempt because they respond to emergency situations that endanger life or property.
Among the routine HUD functions on pause due to the shutdown are building inspections for properties that receive HUD funding. NBC highlighted the consequences of paused inspections with a report detailing how the floor collapsed under one privately owned, HUD-funding property in Connecticut that had been waiting for months for an inspection.
Rental assistance programs continue to operate on the basis of funding that?s already been appropriated, or in situations where life or property are threatened, but...