What to Expect From a Second Trump Term

Housing leaders share what they will be watching during the next administration.

By Donna Kimura

With affordable housing becoming a growing issue across the country, Donald Trump and a new Congress will take office next year.

Trump returns to the White House four years after losing his bid for reelection in 2020. While the new administration and a Republican-controlled Congress have yet to take office, some insight can be gained from Trump’s first term.

The first Trump administration sought on multiple occasions to severely slash the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) budget and suspended the Obama administration’s Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing regulation, delivering a big blow to fair housing efforts. Tax reform efforts also created uncertainty for the critical low-income housing tax credit (LIHTC) market.

“As we did during his last administration, the National Low Income Housing Coalition (NLIHC) will mobilize our members and partners across the nation and work closely with our congressional champions to oppose any cruel or harmful measure offered by President-elect Trump and his administration that would undermine housing justice, exacerbate racial and social inequities, and worsen America’s housing and homelessness crisis,” said NLIHC president and CEO Diane Yentel in a statement.

“NLIHC and our partners successfully defeated many extreme policies during President Trump’s first term, and we are prepared to do the same now,” she said. “NLIHC will also—as it always has done—look for potential areas of agreement with all policymakers to advance solutions that protect tenants, alleviate the housing crisis, and advance racial and housing justice.”While Yentel’s organization and other housing advocates vehemently opposed many of Trump’s proposals, there were a few areas of agreement.

Trump signed into law billions of dollars to address urgent health and housing needs during the COVID-19 pandemic, including $25 billion for emergency rental assistance, and implemented a national eviction ban to help keep families stably housed, noted NLIHC, adding that those were priorities for the coalition.