Project 2025 Tracker / What’s done, what’s next

15. Department of Housing and Urban Development · Minor · Needs Congress

Grant authority for flexible PHA sales of public housing land

Attempted

511 15. Department of Housing and Urban Development

“Additionally, enhanced statutory authorities for local autonomy should extend to the prioritizing of federal rental assistance subsidies that emphasize choice and mobility in housing voucher subsidies over static, site-based subsidies and provide authority for maximal flexibility to direct PHA land sales that involve the existing stock of public housing units.”

What has happened

  1. Attempted

    HUD widened the disposition route it already has rather than waiting for the statutory authority the Quote asks Congress for. Its updated demolition and disposition guidance of 2026-08-28 expands the definition of an obsolete building so that agencies "can now redevelop, modernize, demolish, or sell buildings that have outdated design features", lets public housing agencies with 75 or fewer units reposition every property at once and leave the public housing program, and expands which mixed-finance and scattered-site properties qualify for demolition and disposition. The instrument is Notice PIH 2026-23, issued 2026-08-28 and read in full on 2026-09-06: it amends Notice PIH 2024-40, adjusts the unit threshold in the definition of a "very small PHA" (75 or fewer units under its ACC, which may then close out its Section 9 program and consolidate with a larger nearby agency), raises the maximum unit count for a scattered-site project, clarifies how Section 18 applies to mixed-finance developments, and clarifies when functional obsolescence may justify demolition under 24 CFR 970.15(b)(1)(iii) or disposition under 24 CFR 970.17(c). Every one of those changes is made *inside* the existing statute and regulations — the notice recites that HUD "may only approve a PHA's application if it determines that the statutory and regulatory requirements have been satisfied", and it caps tenant-protection voucher awards at 25 percent of occupied units for efficiency-based dispositions rather than loosening anything statutory. That is executive action routing around a Requires-Congress ask, so `attempted`: the statutory authority is unchanged, and Congress moved slightly the other way in July, providing in § 212 of P.L. 119-101 that any property owned by a public housing agency after a Rental Assistance Demonstration conversion "shall be used to replace, create, preserve, improve, or expand affordable housing supply" and not for private or for-profit purposes.

Research log

What was searched, and what didn’t count as evidence

Research notes

  • Notice retrieved 2026-09-06. HUD’s release gives no notice number and links only to HUD’s home page, but the PIH notices index (hud.gov/hudclips/notices/pih) is complete, and the top row is Notice PIH 2026-23 (https://www.hud.gov/sites/default/files/hudclips/documents/PIH-2026-23.pdf, 26 pages, issued 2026-08-28, PDF created the same day). It is now the first Evidence item, in place of resting the event on HUD’s description of its own action.
  • The question was whether the notice goes beyond 42 U.S.C. 1437p, since the ask is for statutory authority. It does not. Its purpose section frames itself as clarifying “guidance for submitting a Section 18 Demolition and/or Disposition application pursuant to 24 CFR part 970”, every justification it widens is an existing regulatory one, and it adds a restriction the release does not mention: a PHA “may not place PBVs at an existing structure that has been approved under section 18 pursuant to the functional obsolescence justification”.
Action
create
Object
authority for public housing agency land sales
ID
1438