Letter Urges End to Government Shutdown to Lessen Impact on Affordable Housing

The National Low Income Housing Foundation is encouraging people to sign on to its letter to end the government shutdown in order to curtail the negative effect the shutdown is having on affordable housing programs across the United States.

The letter — circulated for signature by the NLIHF and other leaders of the Campaign for Housing and Community Development Funding — calls on Congress and the Trump Administration to end the government shutdown and ensure affordable housing and community development programs receive robust funding.

“The longer the government shutdown goes on, the greater the chances that affordable housing programs will suffer irreversible damage,” says Michael J. Readinger, president and CEO of the UCC’s Council for Health and Human Service Ministries. “It is important for everyone to make their voices heard so that the viability of affordable housing survives.”

According to the NLIHF, low-income people served by affordable housing programs are already being negatively impacted by the shutdown. People from across the country have shared their stories of being threatened with increased rents or evictions, and other individuals have found that landlords will not rent to voucher holders out of concern that HUD will not pay them what is needed to cover their costs.

The longer the shutdown continues, the greater its harm will be, says the NLIHF, and the lowest-income people — seniors, people with disabilities, and families with children — will suffer the most.

Map of Affordable Housing locations affected by the shutdown, December 2018-February 2019.

Learn more via the NLIHF’s Fact Sheet.

Read the text of the letter.

Sign the letter.