Trump wants to ax affordable housing aid

Rural areas would be especially hurt if the HOME grant program is defunded.

- CHARLOTTE KRAMON, JESSE BEDAYN, MICHAELA HERBST AND AARON KESSLER

GEORGE WALKER IV Associated Press HEATHER COLLEY, shown with her son Michah, used a $272,000 grant to build their home in Talbott, Tenn.

Heather Colley and her two children moved four times over five years as they fled high rents in eastern Tennessee, which, like much ofrural America, hasn’t been spared from soaring housing costs.

A family gift in 2021 of a small plot of land offered a shot at homeownership, but building a house was beyond reach for the 45-year-old single mother and manicurist making $18.50 an hour.

That changed when she qualified for a $272,000 grant from a nonprofit to build a three-bedroom home because of a program that has helped make affordable housing possible in rural areas for decades.

She and her family moved in in June.

“Every time I pull into my garage, I pinch myself,” Colley said.

Now, President Trump wants to eliminate that grant, the HOME Investment Partnerships Program, and House Republicans overseeing federal budget negotiations did not include funding for it in their budget proposal.

Experts and state housing agencies say that would set back tens of thousands of future affordable housing developments nationwide, particularly hurting Appalachian towns and rural counties where government aid is sparse and investors are few.

The program has helped build or repair more than 1.3 million affordable homes in the last three decades, of which at least 540,000 were in congressional districts that are rural or significantly rural, according to an Associated Press analysis of federal data.

“Maybe they don’t realize how far-reaching these programs are,” said Colley, who voted for Trump in 2024. Among those half a million homes that HOME helped build, 84% were in districts that voted for him last year, the AP analysis found.