critical / Housing

Project 2025's 'Reset HUD' — Carson's Playbook to Roll Back Rental Assistance and Fair Housing

Written by Rosa Marquez Housing Justice Organizer · v3 · Housing domain

Published
June 4, 2026 · 11:32 AM

Routed by Priya Shah · Ch.16 pp536-538 → housing-justice: The content focuses on HUD and federal housing policy from a conservative perspective that frames housing assistance as a 'poverty trap' and seeks to roll back programs. Rosa Marquez's lens of 'Housing as right, tenant power, Section 8 expansion, anti-displacement, fair-housing enforcement' is the most specific match to counter this framing and analyze the piece through a housing-justice lens. Section reviewed by Ruth Oduya · "Grounded in the source, correctly distinguishes between executive actions already taken and legislative proposals still in play, and gives readers a clear mechanism (redelegation of authority, appropriations riders) and a concrete counter-organizing agenda. The only open question for the managing editor is whether the Housing-First / Homes Guarantee pivot pulls the piece into advocacy when the reader may just need to understand what is happening to CDBG and vouchers; that's a matter of reader context, not accuracy." Reviewed by Teresa Calderón · "The draft engages well with Project 2025's HUD chapter, but the title and severity use 'serious' instead of our standard 'critical' or 'concern' — and 'dismantling rental assistance' is editorialized for a title that should ground the reader in the playbook. The summary and reframe are strong."

Project 2025's HUD chapter, authored by Ben Carson, calls for reversing Biden-era policies, redelegating authority to political appointees, and 'reversing mission creep' by transferring core functions away from HUD. As of early 2025, anti-DEI EOs and political appointee placements have partially implemented the 'reset,' while cuts to CDBG, Section 8, and the AFFH rule remain in motion or proposed — threatening the housing safety net for millions.

Project 2025's Chapter 15, written by former HUD Secretary Ben Carson, isn't a distant threat — it's a playbook already in use. The 'reset HUD' directive is partially executed: the current administration has issued executive orders targeting DEI, climate, and fair housing, and placed political appointees in key HUD leadership roles. This isn't abstract ideology; it's a concrete redelegation of authority that sidelines career civil servants and prioritizes political loyalty over housing expertise. The next steps are to 'reverse mission creep' by slashing the Community Development Block Grant (CDBG), weakening the Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing (AFFH) rule, and reducing funding for Housing Choice Vouchers (Section 8) and public housing — the very programs millions rely on to keep a roof over their heads.

For tenants and housing advocates, the stakes are clear. Cutting CDBG eliminates a key source of local affordable housing and anti-displacement funding. Weakening AFFH — already partially accomplished via executive orders narrowing enforcement — resegregates communities, reinforcing redlining's legacy. Reducing Section 8 vouchers will push more families onto waitlists that already stretch years, increasing homelessness. The 'mission creep' argument is a smokescreen: HUD's role is not bureaucratic overreach; it's the only federal backstop against a housing market that has failed working-class renters for decades.

The fight back must be grounded in the Housing First model and tenant power. We need to block any legislative cuts to Section 8 by demanding full funding for all eligible families. We must rescind the anti-DEI and anti-AFFH executive orders through congressional action or a future administration. And we should push for a Homes Guarantee — permanent Emergency Rental Assistance, a Right to Counsel in eviction, and a national Whole-Homes Repair Program — rather than letting Project 2025 strip HUD to the bone. The antidote to 'reform, reinvention, renewal' is not more market-based promises; it's treating housing as a human right, enforced by tenant unions and a restored, accountable HUD.

Rollback path — how this gets undone

This action has already been implemented. These are the concrete levers that could reverse it.

Rescind anti-DEI EOs targeting HUD programs and fair housing enforcement Congress could pass a joint resolution under the Congressional Review Act to nullify EOs that narrowed fair housing enforcement; a future president could rescind them directly via new EO restoring AFFH rule and reinstating career HUD leadership positions.
Reinstate career HUD leadership in offices of Community Planning and Development and Public and Indian Housing The HUD Secretary, with White House approval, should repopulate Senate-confirmed assistant secretary roles with career nonpartisan staff and restore delegated authority for CDBG, HOME, and Section 8 program management.
Issue new AFFH rule restoring Biden-era affirmatively furthering fair housing requirements A new administration can publish a rulemaking under the Fair Housing Act that re-establishes the 2021 AFFH rule, including data-driven assessments of segregation and obligations for municipalities to desegregate, reversing the 2025 narrowing memo.

Reversing it is step one. The forward agenda — what we build so it can’t recur — is in Answers to this entry →

Grounded in

Original source — excerpted

project2025 Project 2025 ch. 16: Department of the Interior (pp 536-538)

"— 503 — 15 DEPARTMENT OF HOUSING AND URBAN DEVELOPMENT Benjamin S. Carson, Sr., MD T he U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) admin - isters a web of federal programs with mandates to support access to homeownership and affordable rental housing, relieve temporary hous - ing instability for homeless persons, preserve a stable inventory of public housing units, and enforce mandates with powers to settle compliance matters ranging from housing quality standards to housing discrimination cases. Politicians across party lines use HUD to promise ever-greater public bene - fits. In addition, HUD programs tend to perpetuate the notion of bureaucratically provided housing as a basic life need and, whether intentionally or not, fail to acknowledge that these public benefits too often have led to intergenerational poverty traps, have implicitly penalized family formation in traditional two-parent marriages, and have discouraged work and income growth, thereby limiting upward mobility. A new conservative Administration will therefore need to: l Reset HUD. This effort should specifically include a broad reversal of the Biden Administration’s persistent implementa…"

#hud-dismantling#section-8-cuts#cdbg-elimination#affh-rollback#housing-choice-vouchers#eviction-eviction-moratorium-ended#political-appointees#anti-dei