Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation’s policy plan for the next Republican presidency, could have detrimental effects on the availability and affordability of housing for prospective home buyers and renters, fair housing advocates warn.
The plan, if implemented, would restructure many federal agencies, including the Department of Housing and Urban Development, as the country continues to face a housing shortage spurred after the 2008 subprime mortgage lending crash.
Advocates argue that the housing proposals would reverse federal anti-discrimination housing policies and financial lending initiatives meant to make the path to homeownership more equitable.
“We’re talking about who gets to buy a home and how much it will cost,” Center for American Progress Senior Housing Policy Fellow Doug Turner said in an Oct. 21 interview with the Mississippi Free Press.
Former President Donald J. Trump now denies any connection to the 900-page document, but dozens of his former administration officials, allies and potential future administration officials helped draft it. He even previewed it in a 2022 speech to the Heritage Foundation when he said the organization was “going to lay the groundwork and detail plans for exactly what our movement will do … when the American people give us a colossal mandate to save America.”
On Aug. 14, Harris introduced her own housing policies, including tax incentives for builders who construct multi-family homes and a $25,000 down-payment initiative for first-time home-buyers. She says her policies would lower the cost of homeownership and rent.
Federal Housing Assistance Qualifications Would Change
Chapter 15 of Project 2025, authored by Trump’s former Secretary of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development Ben Carson, proposes that HUD redefine the qualifications for federal housing assistance.
Those who belong to historically marginalized communities, like immigrants (including mixed-status families), low-income families and those existing outside of what Carson refers to on page 503 as “traditional, two-parent marriages” could be impacted if the government enacts the policies.
“The Office of the Secretary should recommence proposed regulation put forward under the Trump Administration that would prohibit noncitizens, including all mixed-status families, from living in all federally assisted housing,” Carson writes on page 509.
Noëlle Porter, director of government affairs at the National Housing Law Project, told Shelterforce last month that the Project 2025 plan “would ensure that HUD’s mission does not improve the quality of life or build inclusive and sustainable communities free from discrimination.”
On page 511, Carson suggests reforms to the Section 8 assistance program, asserting that there should be time limits on how long a person can live in federal housing and that HUD should mandate a work requirement to qualify.
He also calls for an end to “Housing First,” a federally-supported model guided by the belief that unhoused people need basic necessities like food and a place to live before they get a job or address substance abuse issues.
Jackson Resource Center executive director Patalumus White, who—despite some pushback—plans to bring a tiny-home village to West Jackson, believes that the “Housing First” model works but added that instead of getting rid of the initiative, HUD should add on to it.
“For a lot of individuals and families, it takes being in a stable environment before you can change your situation,” White said in an Oct. 22 interview with the Mississippi Free Press.
“Mandating that somebody be drug-free, alcohol-free and have their mental health on point (first) is not going to work,” she continued. “But for me, Housing First should have a piece added to it that says certain services should be mandated after they’re housed. Otherwise, they’re not going to keep the housing (we get them into).”
Eliminate Anti-Bias, Fair Housing Initiatives
In addition to recommending that the Federal Housing Administration raise mortgage premiums for loans over 20 years and that Congress reform zoning regulations in favor of single-family housing, Ben Carson lays out a plan for dismantling HUD’s mission that includes repealing civil rights era policies and converting several of the agency’s top leadership positions into “political and non-career appointment positions.”
“This country has a bad history of fair housing,” Center for American Progress Housing Policy Fellow Doug Turner said. “We are nowhere near correcting the problems and economic disadvantages that caused—nowhere near.”
Turner referenced a Feb. 15, 2024, Axios article showing that homes owned by Black families in Jackson, Miss., are worth 20% less than homes owned by white families, despite the fact that Black families in the Jackson metro own their homes at higher rates than the national average.
Some of the policy changes Carson recommends include:
- Ending Biden’s “Property Appraisal and Valuation Equity” initiatives – policies meant to address how appraisers often under-value the properties of Black and Latino homeowners
- Canceling “Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing” Regulations – an accountability process started under the Obama Administration that allows municipalities–like the City of Jackson–to receive Community Development Block Grant funding from HUD, in lieu of an agreement that they provide the federal government reports on how they are proactively and affirmatively furthering fair housing guidelines instituted after Congress passed the Fair Housing Act of 1968
- Ceasing the New Housing Supply Fund – Biden’s grant program to provide cities with funding to build new, affordable properties including multi-family developments
- Rejecting funding for climate change initiatives – HUD’s Climate Action Plan proposes reducing energy emissions and carbon footprint in housing infrastructure and making cities more resilient to natural disasters. Carson calls for revisions of regulatory guidance that adds “unnecessary delay and costs to the construction and development of new housing.”
The mandate also recommends for the next Republican administration to eliminate the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, a key civil rights and consumer protection agency, arguing that the agency is unconstitutional, the Leadership Conference explains.
‘Privatization of The Mortgage Market’
While Chapter 15 of Project 2025 lists recommendations for overhauling the fair housing and anti-bias mission of the Department of Housing and Urban Development, Doug Turner said that he is most concerned with what is outlined in Chapter 22 regarding the U.S. Department of Treasury.
That chapter, authored by William L. Walton, Stephen Moore and David R. Burton, calls for a repeal of the “racist ‘equity’ agenda of the Biden Administration,” page 692 of Project 2025 states.
Walton, Moore and Burton lay out their ideas for doing so—which includes upending mortgage lending by government-sponsored entities Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and ridding the department of its diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility (DEIA) initiatives meant to reverse historically biased practices.
“The section about the Treasury means a lot more for the affordability of housing and the availability of housing if they were to do this. Essentially, they’re calling for the privatization of the mortgage market,” Turner said.
“Right now, Fannie (Mae) and Freddie (Mac) are by far the biggest providers of long-term mortgage finance in the country—both single family and multi-family,” Turner continued.
Turner explained that, if enacted, the plans outlined in Chapter 22 would impact not only low-to-moderate-income people wanting to become homeowners but also multi-family property owners and apartment renters.
“It’s going to be more expensive but more than that, it’s going to be less available,” Turner said, adding that the policies listed in chapters 15 and 22 of Project 2025 are “blind to the wealth disparities” that already exist.
The Heritage Foundation did not respond to the Mississippi Free Press’ request for comment on this story.
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