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

15. Department of Housing and Urban Development · Notable

Suspend all external research and evaluation grants at PDR

Not started

509 15. Department of Housing and Urban Development

“The AS or PDAS for the Office of Policy Development and Research should suspend all external research and evaluation grants in the Office of Policy Development and Research and end or realign to another office any functions that are not involved in the collection and use of data and survey administration functions and do not facilitate the execution of regulatory impact analysis studies.”

What has happened

  1. Not started

    PD&R's external research and evaluation work was not suspended; it was managed forward. Through the whole window PD&R kept running externally executed evaluations and adjusting their funding — most recently on 2026-08-03, when HUD published revisions to the Community Choice Demonstration removing a treatment arm, revising the study enrolment timeline and giving "guidance about the use of funds after the end of study enrollment", which is the opposite of suspending it. In the same period PD&R opened new evaluation collections for the Indian Housing Block Grant Competitive Program (2026-05-27) and the Community Choice Demonstration (2026-05-08), continued the Moving to Work Asset Building Cohort and Stepped and Tiered Rent evaluations, and continued to publish research. No order, notice or announcement suspends PD&R grants, and PD&R has had no Assistant Secretary or Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary in post to give one — the office is run by its career General Deputy Assistant Secretary (#1402). PD&R's own grant-making front door confirms the direction: on 2026-05-29 it posted forecasts of two new demonstration NOFOs (robotics and AI in factory-built housing; automated permitting systems), and on 2026-06-09 a Notice of Intent to accept unsolicited research proposals under its Research Partnerships authority, open to 2027-06-09 — new external research funding, not a suspension. Moved the other way.

Research log

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

Research notes

  • The contrary record is carried on the Status itself, as it is for any action that moved the other way: the Status stays not started and the dated Primary evidence of PD&R continuing its external evaluations is attached to the event.
  • Negative search: a Federal Register search for “Policy Development and Research” in HUD’s documents published on or after 2025-01-20 — 92 documents, read by title; none suspends, terminates or pauses a research or evaluation grant, and several open new ones. HUD’s news index (189 releases, 2025-02-05 to 2026-09-01) contains no announcement about PD&R grants; the only PD&R item in it is a new PD&R study (https://www.hud.gov/news/hud-no-25-146, 2025-12-11).
  • PD&R’s grant-making front door is still open: huduser.gov continues to run the Eviction Protection Grant Program and the Office of University Partnerships research-partnership pages (fetched 2026-09-01). Those pages carry no date, so they are recorded here as observations.
  • Read 2026-09-06. huduser.gov opens in an ordinary browser; two older addresses (huduser.gov/portal/funding.html and huduser.gov/portal/about/pdrgrants.html) are simply retired and no longer exist, in a browser too. The office’s funding page is huduser.gov/portal/ota/funding-opportunities.html. As read, it says “PD&R currently has no open notices of funding opportunity for research grants” and then lists the open Research Partnerships NOI (PDR-2600-DC-0USP), which cites EO 14303 (Gold Standard Science) and HUD’s 2025 implementation plan and names priority areas (industrialized housing, affordability without new spending, homelessness, Made in America). Grants.gov dates the three linked opportunities: 362360 and 362362 posted 2026-05-29 (close 2026-07-13), 362364 posted 2026-06-09 (close 2027-06-09). The Eviction Protection Grant page’s latest award round is “January 2025, $40 million in FY2023 and FY2024 awards to 21 recipients” — undated to the day, so not placed inside or outside the window.
  • Paired with #1423, the second half of the same sentence, also not started.
Action
eliminate
Object
external research and evaluation grants of the Office of Policy Development and Research
ID
1422