Statement by USICH Director Jeff Olivet on the President’s Fiscal Year 2025 Budget
Budget Would Advance Efforts to End Homelessness, Increase Housing Supply, Reduce Housing Costs, and Expand Access to Housing
On Monday, the Biden-Harris Administration released the President’s Budget for Fiscal Year 2025. Following historic progress made under the President’s leadership—with over 14 million jobs added since the President took office and inflation down two-thirds from its peak—the Budget protects and builds on this progress with proposals for responsible, pro-growth investments in America and the American people. The President’s Budget will lower costs for the American people, protect and strengthen Social Security and Medicare, secure Americans at home and abroad, and reduce the deficit by ensuring the wealthy and big corporations pay their fair share.
The President’s 2025 Budget targets more than $10 billion in federal funding for homelessness assistance—a 11% increase overall from 2023 enacted funding and a significant increase for several programs, including a 40% increase for Health Care for the Homeless, 16% increase for HUD-VA Supportive Housing, 12% for Homeless Assistance Grants, and 10% increase for Transitional Housing Assistance Grants to Victims of Sexual Assault. Click to view a full list of the president’s targeted homelessness funding for FY 2025.
“Like clean air, water, and food, housing is a basic human need necessary for the health of people, communities, and nations,” said USICH Director Jeff Olivet. “The President’s Budget treats homelessness like the public health crisis that it is, and it invests in what we need to end it: housing and support.”
The Budget makes critical, targeted investments in the American people that will promote greater prosperity for decades to come. At the 19 federal agencies that make up USICH, the Budget:
- Advances Efforts to End Homelessness. The Budget provides $4.1 billion for Homeless Assistance Grants to continue supporting approximately 1.2 million people experiencing homelessness each year and to expand assistance to approximately 25,000 additional households, specifically survivors of domestic violence and homeless youth. These new resources build on Administration efforts that have expanded assistance to roughly 140,000 additional households experiencing homelessness since the President took office. The Budget further reflects the Administration’s commitment to make progress toward ending homelessness by providing $8 billion in mandatory funding for the acquisition, construction, or operation of housing to expand housing options for people experiencing or at-risk of homelessness, as well as $3 billion in mandatory funding for grants to provide counseling and emergency rental assistance to older adult renters at-risk of homelessness.
- Increases Affordable Housing Supply to Reduce Housing Costs. The President believes that all Americans should be able to afford a quality home, which is why the Budget includes a historic investment of more than $258 billion that would build or preserve over 2 million units. The Budget builds on previous investments and actions by this Administration to boost housing supply and lower housing costs, particularly for lower- and middle-income households. The Budget expands the existing Low-Income Housing Tax Credit and proposes a new Neighborhood Homes Tax Credit. To further address the critical shortage of affordable housing in communities throughout the Nation, the Budget provides $20 billion in mandatory funding for a new Innovation Fund for Housing Expansion. The Budget invests $1.3 billion in the HOME Investment Partnerships Program (HOME) to construct and rehabilitate affordable rental housing and provide homeownership opportunities. The Budget also provides $7.5 billion in mandatory funding for new Project Based Rental Assistance contracts to incentivize the development of new climate-resilient affordable housing. Together these proposals would expand the supply of safe and affordable housing, bring new units to market, and ultimately help curb cost growth across the broader rental market.
- Expands Access to Homeownership and Affordable Rent and Reduces Down Payments for First-Time and First-Generation Homebuyers. The Budget proposes a new Mortgage Relief Credit to help increase access to affordable housing. The proposal includes a new tax credit for middle-class first-time homebuyers of up to $10,000 over two years to ease affordability challenges. In addition, to unlock starter home inventory and allow middle-class families to move up the housing ladder and empty nesters to right size, the President is calling on Congress to provide a one-year tax credit of up to $10,000 to middle-class families who sell their starter home. The Budget also provides $10 billion in mandatory funding for a new First-Generation Down Payment Assistance program to address homeownership and wealth gaps. For renters, the Budget proposes $32.8 billion in discretionary funding for the Housing Choice Voucher Program to maintain and protect critical services for all currently assisted families and support an additional 20,000 households. The Budget also provides $9 billion to establish a housing voucher program for all 20,000 youth aging out of foster care annually, and provides $13 billion to incrementally expand rental assistance for 400,000 extremely low-income veteran families, paving a path to guaranteed assistance for all who have served the Nation and are in need.
The Budget builds on the President’s record to date while achieving meaningful deficit reduction through measures that cut wasteful spending and ask the wealthy to pay their fair share.
For more information on the President’s FY 2025 Budget, please visit: https://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/.