Tens of thousands of poor children — all of them American citizens or legal residents — could lose their housing under a new rule proposed Friday by the Trump administration.
The rule is intended to prevent people who are in the country illegally from receiving federal housing aid, which the administration argues should go to help only legal residents or citizens.
But the proposal targets 25,000 families that now receive such aid because they are of “mixed” status, which means that at least one member of the family is undocumented while the others are citizens or legal residents. These families now pay higher rents to account for their mixed status.
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Under the new rule, those families would lose all of their housing aid, such as vouchers and public housing.
An impact analysis by the Department of Housing and Urban Development, which proposed the rule, acknowledges that the change could have a devastating impact. It says that 108,000 people would be affected. About 70% of them are citizens or legal residents and three-quarters of those — 55,000 — are children.
Diane Yentel, president and CEO of the National Low Income Housing Coalition, called the proposal cruel. “The cruelty of it is really breathtaking and it would do real harm to kids and to families and for what?” Yentel notes that HUD’s unusually frank analysis concludes that there would be few benefits from the change for other low-income families waiting for aid.
The analysis, prepared by career staff, says the agency assumes that some of the affected families would split up because the ineligible family member would be asked to leave so the rest of the family could still receive aid. But it says most of the families would likely move out of their subsidized homes.
“HUD expects that fear of the family being separated would lead to prompt evacuation by most mixed households, whether that fear is justified,” says the agency.
It admits that not all families would leave freely. The agency estimates it would have to spend between 3 million and 4 million dollars on eviction costs, “for those households that required more rigorous enforcement of the regulation.”
The proposed rule change is one of several the Trump administration has made that targets immigrants and restricts public assistance of all kinds. Kristen Clarke,
www.npr.org/2019/05/10/722173775/proposed-rule-could-evict-55-000-children-from-subsidized-housing
Those seeking public housing would be subject to verification of their immigration status. Only families in which every member is either a citizen or a legal resident would qualify for federally subsidized housing.
FOX News reported:
The Trump administration on Friday moved forward with a proposed rule to make it harder for illegal immigrants to access federally subsidized housing — the latest crackdown by the administration on immigrants who use public assistance.
The rule, proposed by the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and posted in the Federal Register, would require that those seeking public housing would be subject to verification of their immigration status. Only families in which every member is either a citizen or a legal resident would qualify for federally subsidized housing. Currently families where at least one person is either a citizen or green card holder can get federal assistance, even if other family members are not.