In King County, Washington, home of Seattle, programs designed to reduce homelessness and assist the unhoused are already feeling the pressure of the Trump administration’s billionaire agenda. Dramatic cuts to federal spending have weakened or entirely removed entire departments of the government. The impact of such decisions on King County’s low-income and unhoused will likely be devastating. The King County Regional Homelessness Authority, which aims to reduce homelessness in the area, estimates that housing for nearly 2,200 formerly unhoused individuals is at risk due to losses in federal funding.
This is not a problem in King County alone. Communities across the country are bracing for similar assaults and cuts.
Direct attacks to housing
Less than 100 days into his second term, Trump, emboldened by his billionaire backers, has begun dismantling hard-won, progressive policies that have been critical to the welfare of working-class families throughout the country for decades.
One target of Trump’s ire is the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness, which was founded to coordinate the federal government’s response to homelessness across multiple federal agencies. It helps states and localities manage homelessness and has played a key role in reducing homelessness among veterans. In a recent executive order, Trump ordered that the council be “eliminated to the maximum extent consistent with applicable law,” a maneuver that will likely enable the executive branch to more directly shape homelessness policy with minimal oversight.
Meanwhile, Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency has made public its intention to halve the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s employee head count. HUD, which aims to make housing more affordable and accessible by providing financial assistance and enforcing fair housing laws, has “provided housing assistance to more than 35 million households” in the past 20 years. Among the most drastic of the proposed cuts to HUD include reducing the staff by 84% at the Office of Community Planning and Development, which funds affordable housing and anti-poverty measures and provides funds to help communities rebuild after natural disasters. Already, the administration has “stalled at least $60 million” in HUD funds earmarked for combatting homelessness in communities throughout the U.S. In King County, the KCRHA, which received over $66 million from HUD in 2024, is anticipating a far-diminished capacity due to the cuts.
The administration’s sweeping cuts to the Department of Health and Human Services, too, impact essential public health, substance abuse, education and housing programs, which disproportionately harms vulnerable working-class communities, especially the unhoused population. Trump has floated plans to entirely defund the Low-Income Home Energy Program, an HHS program upon which 6.2 million working-class families financially depend for their home energy costs. For the estimated 59% of Americans who live paycheck to paycheck, or the 37.2 million Americans currently living in poverty, most of whom suffer from housing insecurity, the sudden cessation of such aid would be catastrophic.
The Trump administration is planning to escalate its attacks on affordable housing. Funding for housing vouchers, which provide assistance to 2.3 million low income families, is already scarce, to the point that only one in four families eligible for vouchers are able to receive them due to insufficient funding. Congress’ recent funding deal did not increase funding for federal vouchers, which will likely lead to 32,000 current voucher recipients losing their aid.
Administration officials, desiring further reductions, have “discussed cutting or canceling out” federal housing vouchers, including Section 8 vouchers, entirely. Eliminating this program would force millions closer to, or directly into, homelessness. In King County, officials expect that reductions to the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit – a critical funding source for affordable housing projects – will worsen an already dire housing shortage. King County authorities are also worried that cuts to programs like Medicaid and Section 4, could further endanger the most vulnerable, limiting their ability to access necessary services.
These cuts don’t just undermine federal housing policy – they represent an intentional, coordinated rollback of essential public infrastructure. And the consequences aren’t hypothetical; they’re already affecting millions of Americans.
The billionaire agenda and housing as a human right
Trump’s war on housing is not limited to direct funding cuts. Experts have expressed concern about the impacts that the broader billionaire agenda will have on housing affordability. Trump’s tariffs, if not reversed, will likely make construction materials more expensive, likely driving up costs for new construction. The chaos caused by Trump’s erratic macroeconomic policies could also increase mortgage rates, further disincentivizing construction, chilling the housing market and exacerbating housing insecurity. These policies, along with labor shortages caused by mass deportations and Trump’s anti-immigrant agenda, will increasingly stress the already historically dire housing supply. Regressive immigration policies can also dissuade immigrants from seeking help from housing agencies, as noted by authorities in King County, further reducing the accessibility of housing.
For decades, politicians on both sides of the aisle have failed to prioritize the needs of low-income and unhoused people. But Trump’s second administration has ushered in an era of open hostility – an effort to dismantle what little infrastructure remains to protect the vulnerable, unprecedented in its aggressive violence.
This is not a policy failure. It’s a deliberate, malevolent campaign by a billionaire-backed government to lock in the status of housing as an expensive commodity rather than a fundamental human right. This systematic agenda underscores the need for organized working-class resistance and a new political vision. And the inability of the Democrats and other opposing forces within the political establishment to mount any kind of resistance demonstrates the need for systemic change. King County officials and providers have highlighted the need for alternative funding sources to compensate for the Trump administration’s cuts, but neither Seattle’s City Council nor recently elected Democratic Gov. Bob Ferguson has expressed willingness to increase taxes or take significant budgetary action to address the problem. Their inaction makes clear the fallacy of expecting politicians to bring about necessary change.
What is needed is not just the restoration of programs dismantled by Trump, but the radical reconstruction of a new society. We need a system that ensures housing for all, free from the market forces and private interests that have profited off of suffering for far too long. Only a socialist future can enshrine housing as a human right to be enjoyed by all.
Feature photo: Caelie Frampton, Vancouver, BC, Canada, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
