NCSHA’s Preliminary Analysis of the Administration’s FY 2019 Budget Proposal
The Budget proposes a total of $1.2 trillion in discretionary spending for FY 2019, abiding by the overall discretionary caps imposed by the Budget Control Act (BCA) of 2011. Because the Budget documents were written before Congress last week passed the budget deal that raises the BCA caps for FY 2018 and FY 2019, the Administration includes with its Budget an addendum that proposes allocating the additional funding for a limited set of Administration priorities. The Administration requests, as part of this addendum, $2 billion for HUD, including $1 billion to hold harmless elderly and disabled households from proposed rent reforms (see more below); $700 million for Housing Choice Vouchers to restore funding for an estimated 200,000 vouchers; and $300 million for the public housing operating fund to assist Public Housing Authorities (PHAs) that could potentially face insolvency.