The House Appropriations Subcommittee on Transportation, Housing, and Urban Development (THUD) and Related Agencies held a markup on Monday night to discuss their FY 2026 spending bill.

By the Numbers: The total cost of the bill is $67.751 billion, just shy of $1 billion less than the FY 2025 enacted level.

  • What Increased from FY 2025 Levels:
  • What Stayed Level:
    • CDBG was level-funded at $3.3 billion, with the remaining increase being for earmarks; and
    • Housing Opportunities for Persons with AIDS.
  • What Decreased from FY 2025 Levels:
    • Zero out of HOME Investment Partnerships and Choice Neighborhood Initiatives;
    • Tenant-Based Rental Assistance (Section 8 Voucher program) decreased by about $780 million to $35.268 billion;
  • Note: The FY 2026 amount is an increase from the FY 2024 funding level of $32.39 billion and a slight decrease from the FY 2025 funding level of $36.04 billion. The FY 2025 level was especially high, as the FY 2025 continuing resolution, signed through September 30, included an ‘anomaly’ increase for voucher renewals.
  • Public Housing Funding decreased by about $1.6 billion; and
  • For most other programs, the House proposed small reductions in FY 2026 funding compared to FY 2025 levels.

In contrast to President Trump’s FY 2026 proposal to eliminate almost all program funding, the House Appropriations subcommittee restored nearly all funds in its version of the budget.

  • Most notably, the House did not take up President Trump’s State Rental Assistance Block Grant proposal, which would have combined the Housing Choice Voucher program, Public Housing, Project-Based Rental Assistance, and the Section 811 and Section 202 programs into one fund administered by states.

Go Deeper: The House released a summary document to provide additional details for their reduction decisions:

  • The $35.268 billion for Tenant-Based Rental Assistance (Section 8 Voucher program) “will maintain housing support for over 2 million households.”
  • There are “No funds for the HOME Investment Partnerships program to reflect the nearly $5 billion yet to be spent from the Democrats’ American Rescue Plan.”
    • The $5 billion in HOME funding from the American Rescue Plan has different use restrictions.
  • There is only “$1.469 billion for salaries and expenses to reflect a 26 percent reduction in staffing at HUD.”

What They’re Saying In Response to the Budget:
THUD Subcommittee Chairman Steve Womack (R-AR) said,

“The FY26 Transportation, Housing, and Urban Development Appropriations bill ensures safe and efficient air travel, maintains access to housing for vulnerable Americans, bolsters critical military and civilian infrastructure while delivering targeted funding to help federal agencies better serve the American people while employing fiscal responsibility.”

THUD Subcommittee Ranking Member James Clyburn (D-SC) said,

“In this appropriations process, Republicans claim we must ‘responsibly’ cut federal spending because of deficit concerns. But their definition of ‘responsible’ is taking housing away from vulnerable Americans and kicking the can down the road on addressing the country’s growing housing shortage, homelessness crisis, and crumbling infrastructure – problems that will only get bigger and more expensive if we do nothing to address them now.

What’s Next: The markup hearing ended on a party-line vote to send the bill to the full committee. The full committee markup is scheduled for tomorrow, July 17, at 10 a.m. and can be streamed here.