HousingWireHousingWire
The Office of Community Planning and Development inside the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) is poised to be drastically reduced in size through cuts to a vast majority of its staff, according to a report published Thursday by The New York Times.
Citing a document obtained by the outlet, the office that helps communities rebuild following natural disasters — most recently and visibly observed in the federal response to hurricanes Helene and Milton in North Carolina and Florida, respectively — would see its headcount shrink to about 150 workers, down from 936 immediately prior to Donald Trump’s transition to the White House last month. This equates to a staff reduction of 84%, the Times reported.
The office offers support to the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) in situations where a disaster may exceed FEMA’s budget authority to provide sufficient assistance.
It connects displaced or otherwise impacted disaster victims with resources that included HUD-approved housing counselors. It also provides Community Development Block Grant Disaster Recovery (CDBG-DR) funds in presidentially declared major disaster areas (PDMDAs).
“HUD is carrying out President Trump’s broader efforts to restructure and streamline the federal government to serve the American people at the highest standard,” a HUD spokesperson said in a statement to the Times. This is similar to a statement received by HousingWire this week regarding supposed cuts at the Federal Housing Administration (FHA).
With the acceleration of natural disasters in recent years, Congress has in some cases provided up to tens of billions of dollars in CDBG-DR funds to assist localities with recovery efforts. These expenditures — which come with fewer conditions than other recovery funding sources — have significantly increased since the 1990s, when the sums often came out to “a few hundred million dollars per year,” the Times reported.
Alys Cohen, a senior attorney with the National Consumer Law Center (NCLC) who oversees its federal housing advocacy efforts with Congress and regulatory agencies, previously explained to HousingWire what some of the potential impacts could be if the office loses much of its manpower, funding or both.
“We’re only having more natural disasters as time goes on,” Cohen said last week. “And HUD’s program provides long-term recovery assistance in disaster areas, and it’s money that local and state officials also rely on. Disasters don’t have political preferences, and they strike everywhere, including in a lot of Southern states. Without this funding, communities will be much less likely to recover.”
The cuts, she added, could also undermine a stated goal of the Trump administration about the cost of housing as outlined in a day-one executive order.
“When you have communities struck by disasters, it increases the problem of the housing supply shortage, and so failure to support these communities will only increase the acuteness of the housing supply shortage, which is a bipartisan issue,” Cohen said.
Disaster recovery is only part of the office’s duties. It also oversees programs to address homelessness, affordable housing, community project funding, infrastructure and more.
