This week, the Trump administration took steps toward a dramatic change in policy regarding public and subsidized housing. The public comment period closed on the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s proposed rule to reserve housing assistance American citizens – to “prohibit…the making available of financial assistance to persons other than U.S. citizens…in HUD’s public and specified assisted living programs.”
It could lead to the eviction of an estimated more than 20,000 residents of public and subsidized housing who took advantage of a loophole in the law that limited government assistance to citizens. Sparks could fly, à la ICE in Minneapolis, as illegal immigrants and their belongings are thrown onto the streets.
HUD is not wrong that lax enforcement has opened the apartment door to undocumented immigrants. But the crackdown on illegals, given their small numbers, is far less important than a new HUD initiative that could change the nature of “the projects” for citizens trapped in poverty there.
There is no doubt that a loophole in the law allowed illegal immigrants to enter public housing despite long waiting lists. Here’s how it worked: A legal immigrant can get off a long waiting list to get into public housing and then invite undocumented family members to join him or her in a “mixed household,” as long as they pay rent based on their income — which, in theory, they have to report.
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It is an important change for two reasons. By jumping across the border to subsidized housing, illegal immigrants can avoid long waiting lists. In New York City alone, 227,000 are on the waiting list for public housing apartments, and 200,000 are waiting for vacancies in the city’s 112,000 housing voucher — also known as Section 8 — apartments. In Baltimore, there are 64,000 on the combined waiting lists; in Boston, 42,000; and in Milwaukee 47,000.
A Queensbridge Houses apartment building in New York City on May 28, 2025. (Google Maps)
Closing this loophole will also end the incentive for illegal immigration itself, based on the understanding that extended families can settle into cousin public housing. Those with a green card – who have not joined the immigration line – should be allowed to stay.
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Perhaps the number of illegals in the projects is greater than the 20,000 estimated by HUD Secretary Scott Turner. But the crackdown will still pale in importance compared to another rule proposed by the Trump administration’s suddenly reform-minded HUD: a regulation encouraging the nation’s 3,200 public housing authorities to implement a work requirement and a time limit on leases.
President Donald Trump and HUD Secretary Scott Turner. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
In the current situation, only 24% of subsidized households report wages as an important source of income. In other words, most of them don’t work. Additionally, 73% have lived in their unit for ten years or more.
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In other words, HUD’s proposed new rule could change the culture of public housing from one of long-term dependency to one of upward mobility: outward and upward. It is in line with the successful 1996 reform law, which imposed a work requirement and a five-year term for benefits.
More could be done. As it stands now, families with the lowest incomes get priority for subsidized housing. In fact, this benefits single mothers, who form the largest group of non-elderly people in the projects. Only 3% of households consist of two-parent families. Giving them priority would be another major step toward changing the dysfunctional culture of public housing, which was originally intended for the working class. If such a change turns out to benefit legal immigrants, who often work and marry, the Trump administration should consider it a victory.
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