Housing in the press

April 24, 2026 — A proposed rule to implement rigid two-year time limits and 40-hour weekly work requirements puts nearly 3.7 million people at risk of losing rental assistance, including more than 1.9 million children. These changes would affect major programs like Housing Choice Vouchers and Public Housing, potentially leading to a sharp increase in evictions and homelessness.

Even households that are currently employed are vulnerable; approximately 2.1 million people in working households could lose their benefits because they cannot guarantee 40 hours of work every week or have reached the arbitrary time limit. While seniors and people with disabilities are intended to be exempt, burdensome red tape and the difficulty of providing extensive documentation make it likely that many eligible individuals will still lose their housing.

Evidence from similar programs indicates that these restrictions do not increase employment or earnings. Instead, they fail to address underlying barriers like the lack of affordable childcare and transportation. Furthermore, the proposal is legally dubious, as it is widely understood that current laws do not grant the authority to impose such requirements across these programs. Rather than taking assistance away, providing more resources to bridge the gap between housing costs and low incomes is a more effective way to ensure housing stability.

Updated April 6, 2026 — Foreclosures on VA-backed loans have reached a 10-year high, with over 10,000 veterans losing their homes since May 2025 and another 90,000 currently at risk. This spike followed the Trump administration’s decision to abruptly shut down the Veterans Affairs Servicing Purchase (VASP) program on May 1, 2025, despite warnings from the mortgage industry that doing so without a replacement would be a "disaster". VASP had previously saved more than 33,000 veterans by providing low-cost, 2.5% interest rate mortgages to those who had fallen behind.

The roots of the crisis trace back to the Biden administration’s sudden termination of a pandemic-era assistance program, which left many veterans facing unaffordable lump-sum payments for skipped mortgage installments. While the VA initially halted foreclosures for a year to roll out VASP, the program’s early termination left many veterans "stranded" in a bureaucratic quagmire.

Currently, veterans have fewer protections than non-veteran homeowners; while other government-backed loans offer emergency options that maintain original interest rates, veterans are often forced into loan modifications that can increase monthly payments by hundreds of dollars. Although a new program is in development, it is still months away and may still require some veterans to accept monthly payment increases of up to 15%.