President Donald Trump's administration is looking at cutting more than $6 billion at the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), according to The Washington Post.
Preliminary budget information showed that public housing support would be reduced and most federal funds for community development grants — for such actions as meal assistance and cleanup of abandoned properties — would be dropped, The Post reported.
HUD's budget would decrease by 14 percent to $40.5 billion in the 2018 fiscal year that starts in October. Trump appears to be carrying out a goal to cut domestic spending in order to increase defense spending, according to The Post.
The Community Development Block Grant Program would not receive any of $3 billion that it had been funded, although it has bipartisan congressional support, according to the budget documents.
The budget document cuts money for building maintenance and community development, but suggests money from other sources for those projects. HUD Secretary Ben Carson has said he does not want recipients to depend on HUD programs as a "way of life."
Jereon Brown, HUD spokesman, said the budget document is "a work in progress." The complete plan will be released next week.
Public housing authorities are targeted in the budget document, The Post reported, with 13-percent cuts that would equal $600 million.
According to a 2010 HUD report, tens of billions of dollars in repairs are needed in public housing units. The budget document cuts funds for those by an additional $1.3 billion, or 32 percent.
More cuts would affect homeless veterans and the elderly.
"These sorts of cuts could . . . increase the number of families and people that are homeless because housing is less affordable," Marc Morial, president of the National Urban League, said. Such cuts are "devastating and hard-hearted," he said.
The budget is still being worked on. John Czwartacki, Office of Management and Budgets spokesman, said commenting on it would be "premature," according to The Post.
Rachel Fee, executive director of the New York Housing Conference, slammed the cuts in a post on Twitter.
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