On February 20, The Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) introduced a proposal to evict “mixed-status” families, those with both eligible and ineligible family members based on their immigration status, from Section 8 and public housing. This would subject 80,000 individuals, including 36,000 U.S. citizens, to eviction, displacing longtime residents, increasing homelessness, and harming immigrant communities.
The proposed rule states, “Section 214 of the Housing and Community Development Act of 1980, as amended (Section 214) prohibits the Secretary of HUD from making financial assistance available to persons other than United States citizens, nationals, or certain categories of eligible noncitizens in HUD’s public and specified assisted housing programs.” If this change is finalized, it would “require the verification of U.S. citizenship or eligible immigration status of recipients of assistance under a covered program and make prorated assistance a temporary condition pending verification of eligible status.”
Mother Jones reported that, last March, Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Scott Turner and Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem signed a memorandum of understanding that purported to “end the wasteful misappropriation of taxpayer dollars to benefit illegal aliens instead of American citizens.”
This attack is consistent with the well-documented right-wing strategy to divide and conquer populations in order to create “disposable” people. This requires first naming a scapegoat— in this case immigrant communities — then blaming austerity and economic decline on the scapegoat. Privatization is posed as the solution, stripping vulnerable residents of much-needed government assistance and removing services like public housing vouchers that make it possible to afford living in Los Angeles. The resulting evictions and increase in homelessness — made even more dangerous amidst the violence of ongoing ICE raids — is designed to lead to mass incarceration and profit for the administration. This process mirrors the Nazi propaganda claim that “we need more room to live” and the tactic of redlining, which uses racial segregation as a tool for housing to be inequitably used to drive profit and exploit Black Americans.
On February 19 of this year, public housing residents spoke at the The Housing Authority of the City of Los Angeles (HACLA) meeting, urging them to fulfill their commitment to residents to provide affordable public housing. When Knock LA spoke with a group of tenants on March 11, they explained how this proposal would directly impact them and their neighbors. (Note: the following interviews were translated from Spanish to English by Tabatha Yelos).
“This is horrible,” said Maria, who has been living in public housing for 22 years. “It’s deeply stressful. It’s discrimination, against us, against Latinos, against immigrants. It seems like they don’t see us as people. They’re trying to attack the resources that give us a dignified life.”
She described being accepted into public housing as a “blessing” for her family, “where all my kids would have their own room and they could be comfortable.” Without the rental assistance the HUD rule threatens to end, this wouldn’t be possible for them.
“So what they’re really trying to do is destroy us, it’s extremely devastating,” Maria said. “Right now, there’s also not stable work available … I’ve been looking around just in case this does go through, like, how much would we have to save up to pay? And I’ve been finding a room for, like, $1,800, [or] a two bedroom for $2,500. Where are we going to get that type of money? They’re just using immigrants as an excuse to attack all low-income families.”
Maria also discussed the emotional burden caused by this threat to housing stability. “It feels like they’re abusing us psychologically. … I have a daughter who is disabled and like, where are we gonna go? Nobody knows what we can expect, and everyone’s just waiting to see what’s gonna happen.”
Ingrid, a single mother of four, said, “It would really just deeply destabilize my life … I don’t have a very high income. For a family of five, we would have to find a bedroom, like a four or five bedroom apartment, that I cannot afford. They’re way too expensive on the private market. So where would I go? My children, they would lose their housing, and we really have nowhere to go. We’d end up on the streets or at a park or under a bridge. It’s really difficult, it’s really unjust.”
She continued, “I also worry that my kids will get bullied at school because they have parents who don’t have papers. So it would really affect us a lot.”
Ingrid went on to explain that public housing has provided comfort and stability for her family. “I’ve been living in public housing for two years. It really came to us as a surprise. You know, my kids are really happy here. Before living here, we were renting a room and a house when we were all sharing the room, and the bathroom, the kitchen, and the living room were all shared with other people who were renting rooms in a house.”
Many families and single parents with children are in similar positions as Ingrid and Maria. If even one family member is not able to verify their eligibility, the entire family would lose their public housing or federal rental assistance unless that individual left the household. It is cruel and inhumane to suggest that families should be faced with the choice of being torn apart or losing desperately needed financial assistance in a brutal housing market.
The next step is predictable: evicting families with ineligible members will lead to less funding for subsidized housing, resulting in the closure of affordable units. In his appropriations proposal last year, Trump said the federal government won’t be issuing new vouchers, revealing that they never intended to house fully eligible families, either. Gutting these resources accomplishes multiple goals at once, consolidating money and power towards the ultra rich and destroying faith in government by defunding social safety nets, all while reinforcing racist scapegoating in order to desensitize the population and normalize cruelty. The aim is to push immigrants and low-income families onto the streets, and ultimately for institutions of mass incarceration to replace affordable housing.
Under the Trump administration, HUD has put forth aggressively anti-immigrant messaging, with Instagram posts stating “Strong Border = Housing Affordability” and connecting criminality in public housing to Black and Brown residents, suggesting that these resources are only available for white people. They even posted a popular meme that reads “TFW illegal aliens are deported and you can afford housing again.”
Trump originally attempted to enact this same policy in 2019, but a flood of public comments delayed the rule until the next election, which he lost. HUD, which is required to read and respond to each individual comment, received 30,000 comments, allowing families targeted by the proposal to remain eligible for public housing.
Now, organizers are urging communities to hold “comment parties” to write and send letters to HUD, demanding that they continue providing rental assistance to immigrant families. The public comment period ends on April 21, and Tabatha Yelos, Organizing Director of People Organized for Westside Renewal (POWER), stated that their goal is 60,000 comments by April 20.
Another public housing resident talked about their efforts to inform their neighbors about the HUD proposal, urging them to submit public comments. “Another thing we’ve been doing is knocking on doors,” she said. “You know, sometimes we forget to talk to our own families, but my daughter the other day was like, ‘Mom, you haven’t even given us a flyer.’”
She continued, “We’ve been doing workshops in the community and virtually trying to tell people what’s going on and get them to submit comments … All of our folks here participate in all of our programming, and we do food banks to support the food needs in the community … Our programming will really be affected if this thing goes through.”
She added, “I’ll just say this again, I’ll repeat myself a hundred times, but everyone can please support us [by] getting comments and trying to get to 60,000. If we can get more, that would be great. But it’s going to really take all of us, and I really believe that we can do this.”
Keep Families Together, a “national coalition fighting to protect the rights of mixed-status immigrant families living in public and other federally subsidized housing,” is hosting a virtual teach-in on April 20 to educate community members on how to fight Trump’s attacks on public housing and immigrant families.
To support efforts to block the HUD proposal, submit your public comment online here. If you’d prefer to send a letter, here are instructions for mailing your comment.
