Congress Averts Partial Government Shutdown, Approves $70B for HUD

Congress has approved its Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, and Related Agencies fiscal year 2024 funding bill, and the measure includes $70.07 billion for HUD.

The T-HUD spending bill maintains critical support for HUD rental assistance programs, which assist nearly 5 million vulnerable households — more than half of whom are elderly or people with disabilities. This includes:

• $32.39 billion for tenant-based Section 8 vouchers — which will maintain housing support for 2.4 million households.
• $16.01 billion for the project-based rental assistance program to renew housing contracts serving 1.3 million households.

The T-HUD spending bill, which will fund the agency through Sept. 30, 2024, also includes several other provisions of interest to the housing community:

• $1.25 billion for the HOME Investment Partnerships program, which is $250 million below the fiscal year 2023 enacted level.
• $3.3 billion for the Community Development Block Grant program.
• Caps the Federal Housing Administration’s guaranteed loans for the Mutual Mortgage Insurance program at $400 billion and provides $150 million to carry out the program.
• Provides $35 billion limitation on guaranteed loans for the General and Special Risk Insurance Program.
• Sets a $550 billion limitation on guaranteed loans for the Government National Mortgage Association and provides $54 million to carry out the program.

Congress also approved fiscal year 2024 spending bills for several other government agencies, including Agriculture-FDA, Commerce-Justice and Science, Energy and Water Development, Interior, and Military Construction-VA.

NAHB is disappointed that a provision in the Senate Energy and Water spending bill that would have provided an additional $1.2 billion to boost the production of sorely needed distribution transformers did not make it into the final package. NAHB is already looking ahead to the federal appropriations process for fiscal 2025 and will make this issue a priority.

Also looking forward in the near-term, Congress must enact the remaining six appropriations bills — Defense, Financial Services and General Government, Homeland Security, Labor-HHS, Legislative Branch, and State and Foreign Operations — prior to March 22.

NAHB continues to push lawmakers to approve the full $1.7 billion in the Senate Labor-HHS spending bill for Job Corps, the nation’s most successful career preparation program for disadvantaged youth. The House Labor-HHS budget proposal completely eliminated funding for Job Corps.

The Home Builders Institute (HBI), NAHB’s workforce development partner, is Job Corps’ largest skilled trades training provider. Between now and March 22 NAHB will work tirelessly with lawmakers to push for a final appropriations bill that includes full funding for Job Corps.

We will also work to ensure that authorization for the National Flood Insurance Program is extended through Sept. 30, 2024.