SACRAMENTO, Calif. — California lawmakers and housing advocates are moving to block a proposed federal housing rule they warn could increase homelessness and destabilize low-income families across the state, as AB 2128 advances through the Legislature in response to a controversial Trump administration proposal targeting HUD-assisted housing programs.
The legislation, authored by Assemblymember Matt Haney and sponsored by the National Housing Law Project, would prohibit California housing authorities and HUD-subsidized housing providers from imposing work requirements or time limits on tenants in federally assisted housing programs. The bill comes in direct response to a proposed rule by HUD that would allow local housing providers to adopt work requirements of up to 40 hours per week and impose housing assistance time limits as short as two years.
In an interview with the Vanguard, National Housing Law Project staff attorney Lila Gitesatani said the proposal threatens to undermine housing stability for some of the state’s most vulnerable residents.
“AB 2128 is a bill to protect HUD tenants and providers of HUD housing from a harmful HUD proposed rule that would take away housing by imposing strict work requirements and time limits on tenants,” Gitesatani said. “This bill would prohibit housing authorities and operators of HUD housing from opting in to the proposed rule.”
The HUD proposal would apply to multiple federal housing assistance programs, including public housing, Housing Choice Vouchers, Project-Based Vouchers and Project-Based Rental Assistance programs. According to NHLP materials, the proposal could place millions of households at risk of losing housing assistance nationwide.
A Center on Budget and Policy Priorities analysis estimated that as many as 3.7 million people nationwide, including 1.9 million children, could lose rental assistance under the proposed rule if adopted broadly by housing providers.
California alone could see more than 317,000 people affected, according to the same analysis.
Gitesatani said the California legislation is intended to act preemptively because the federal rule remains discretionary rather than mandatory.
“The federal proposed rule is discretionary,” she explained. “Housing authorities and providers of HUD housing can opt in and create time limits and work requirements. Here in California, we’re saying that we’re not going to opt into those discretionary policies.”
She noted that other states have already considered or enacted “trigger laws” designed to automatically adopt such federal policies if finalized.
“Even in the proposed rule, they highlight these bills from other states,” Gitesatani saidnoting for example, Arkansas and Wisconsin. “The trigger laws in Arkansas and Wisconsin say if this proposed rule goes into effect, that in their state, they’re going to automatically opt in. So here in California, the bill would say that we are not going to opt in.”
Housing advocates argue the federal proposal would worsen housing insecurity rather than promote employment or self-sufficiency.
“These types of policies like work requirements and time limits, they do not work and they undermine self-sufficiency efforts that they claim they are aimed at,” Gitesatani said. “And the data shows that work requirements and time limits in publicly funded safety net programs and they have been utilized in other programs, they do not improve outcomes for the recipients.”
She warned that many recipients already work but remain unable to afford market-rate housing because of the state’s severe affordability crisis.
“A proposal like this in housing would push even more people who already have jobs and are still struggling to make ends meet into homelessness,” she said.
The proposed federal rule would permit housing authorities and property owners to require “work-eligible adults” between the ages of 18 and 61 to work, search for work or participate in qualifying activities for up to 40 hours per week. Failure to comply could result in termination of housing assistance and eventual eviction.
Although elderly residents and many people with disabilities would technically be exempt, advocates argue the administrative burdens associated with proving eligibility would still place vulnerable residents at risk.
“There’s going to be huge administrative barriers to comply with these types of programs,” Gitesatani said. “These types of policies, tenants would have to do a lot of paperwork, there’d be a lot of administrative barriers for them to even prove that they are working and that they meet the requirements.”
The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities similarly warned that even exempt households often lose benefits because of procedural requirements and bureaucratic obstacles.
“Experience with work requirements in other programs shows that even people who are exempt or are working the required number of hours often lost assistance due to burdensome red tape,” the report stated.
The National Housing Law Project has also challenged the legality of the federal proposal, arguing that HUD lacks congressional authority to broadly impose work requirements and time limits across federal housing programs. In formal comments submitted to HUD, the organization stated that “Congress has consistently rejected similar proposals to impose work requirements and time limits on federally assisted tenants.”
The organization’s 39-page legal analysis argues that Congress previously rejected more expansive work requirement proposals when enacting federal housing laws and instead only authorized limited pilot programs through the Moving to Work demonstration program.
The proposal arrives amid growing national concern about housing affordability and homelessness. HUD housing programs currently assist more than one million Californians, including large numbers of seniors, children and people with disabilities.
According to the NHLP fact sheet, most recipients of federal housing assistance “would be homeless without it.”
Gitesatani said the California bill is designed not only to protect tenants but also to shield local housing providers from federal political pressure.
“PHAs and providers of HUD housing, they interact with HUD regularly and they receive their funding from HUD for very vital programs,” she said. “And we expect that they’re going to receive significant political pressure from HUD to opt in even here in California.”
“So one way this bill helps is that it insulates housing authorities and that providers of HUD housing from that political pressure in addition to helping protect families that rely on these programs to stay stably housed,” she added.
Advocates contend the proposed federal rule conflicts with the administration’s stated concerns about the national housing crisis because the policies could ultimately increase housing instability and homelessness.
“Especially when it has been tested in other programs and these types of policies have failed to really … They’re saying this is for self-sufficiency, but it’s not actually creating self-sufficiency. It’s just harming those that are relying on these programs,” Gitesatani said.
The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities reached a similar conclusion, arguing that work requirements in programs like SNAP and Medicaid have repeatedly failed to increase employment while increasing hardship.
The National Housing Law Project also argued the proposed rule reflects a broader pattern of reductions to federal housing support under the current administration.
“These types of cuts hurt all of us while targeting some of the most vulnerable populations,” Gitesatani said. “And this proposed rule is one of many that we’re seeing come out of this administration.”
“Despite our government having the resources to house families, this administration is choosing to defund HUD and ignore evidence-based solutions to house people,” she added.
AB 2128 recently passed the Assembly and is now moving to the California Senate for consideration.
Gitesatani said California is not alone in attempting to resist the federal proposal.
“Other states such as Illinois are also working on a similar bill to protect their housing authorities and their tenants from this HUD proposal as well,” she said.
NHLP officials say they will continue advocating against the federal rule at both the state and national levels as the proposal moves through the administrative process.
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