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

15. Department of Housing and Urban Development · Notable

Strengthen work and work-readiness requirements in HUD programs

Attempted

509 15. Department of Housing and Urban Development · abridged

“Where admissible in regulatory action, HUD should implement reforms reducing the implicit anti-marriage bias in housing assistance programs, strengthen work and work-readiness requirements, implement maximum term limits for residents in PBRA and TBRA programs, and end Housing First policies so that the department prioritizes mental health and substance abuse issues before jumping to permanent interventions in homelessness.”

What has happened

  1. Attempted

    HUD proposed the rule the Quote asks for. "Establishing Flexibility for Implementation of Work Requirements and Term Limits" would amend 24 CFR parts 5, 960, 982 and 983 to give every public housing agency and certain Section 8 project-based rental assistance owners the option to impose a work requirement of up to 40 hours a week on work-eligible adults aged 18 to 61 in public housing, Housing Choice Vouchers, project-based vouchers and PBRA, with a duty to offer supportive services alongside it. Secretary Turner announced it on 2026-02-27, saying "[h]ousing assistance was never meant to trap work-able individuals on government support their entire lives", and noted that fewer than 1 percent of public housing agencies currently impose work requirements. It is `attempted`: comments closed 2026-05-01, no final rule had issued by this pass, and the rule offers agencies an option rather than imposing a requirement, so no tenant's obligations have changed.

Research log

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

Research notes

  • The Mandate’s sentence is elided; the term-limit clause is #1419, which the same proposed rule answers, the marriage clause is #1417 (not started) and the Housing First clause is #1420.
  • Read the rule text before leveling: the operative words give PHAs and owners the option to implement work requirements. That is a directive without effect yet, so attempted and not partial — nothing has been strengthened for any household until an agency adopts the option under a final rule.
  • Congress has not acted. The only 119th-Congress bill on the subject, H.R. 8877 (2026-05-19), merely directs HUD to study how public housing agencies implement work requirements and was referred to committee.
  • HUD’s CoC incentives notice of 2026-09-11 (FR 2026-18555) would reward “supportive services concentrating on improving employment income” and “supportive service participation agreements”. Those are services and agreements, not work or work-readiness requirements, so it reaches this ask’s subject and not its object. No event (reviewed 2026-09-11; see #1444).
Action
restrict
Object
work and work-readiness requirements for HUD housing assistance
ID
1418