The proposal, published Friday, would prohibit families in which at least one member is unauthorized from obtaining subsidized housing, according to an analysis by HUD career officials. The administration is pushing the changes to ensure that benefits are awarded only to verified citizens — a move that was made without the knowledge of many longtime housing officials at the department.
Under the proposed rule, families of mixed status would no longer be permitted to live in public housing. Members who are in the country legally would be allowed to stay in their home, but the analysis found they would be unlikely to do so: The fear of a family separation alone — and displacing one or both of a child’s parents or guardians — would have the effect of driving the entire family to vacate.
The rules are in a public comment stage and are not yet in effect.
In proposing the change, administration officials pointed to the long waiting lists for public housing, underlining that the changes would open the door to citizens struggling to obtain affordable housing.
But experts said most of the residents now likely to be displaced are citizens or legally permitted to live in the United States.
The rule “does nothing to address the affordable housing crisis that exists,” said Douglas Rice, a senior policy analyst at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a nonpartisan think tank. “In fact, the rule will take assistance away from one set of eligible U.S. citizens and immigrants and give it to another. So there’s really no net gain.”
Career department officials have argued that the new policy could cost the already-struggling agency millions in rent because immigrants in the country illegally are often among the most reliable tenants — because they do not want the scrutiny that missing payments would invite, a senior department official said.
Replacing households of mixed immigration status with households of only eligible residents would require the agency to provide full subsidies for each resident, costing HUD at least $193 million, the analysis found.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.