A coalition of housing groups has sued to stop the Trump administration’s attempt to cancel $56 million in funding for a federal housing counseling program as part of a much larger package of funding rescissions.
In a lawsuit filed late Tuesday, the National Urban League and groups from several states say the Trump administration wants to let nearly all funding for the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Comprehensive Housing Counseling program expire.
The program funds nonprofits that help people with foreclosure prevention, renting, budgeting and buying a home.
The groups contend the decision was made in part because the Trump administration objects to the political views and advocacy of some of the organizations that receive the funds — and that Congress needed to approve the cuts first.
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“The executive branch lacks the constitutional power to ignore statutory mandates because it disagrees with the policies that Congress has enacted,” the federal lawsuit, which also includes housing advocacy groups from Illinois, North Carolina and New Jersey as plaintiffs.
“The executive branch has no power to decline to spend funds that Congress has mandated be spent in appropriations acts.”
On Friday, the Trump administration sent Congress a proposal to cancel nearly $1 billion in appropriated funds, including $56.1 million of the $57.5 million allocated to the housing program.
The groups want a judge to find the government’s decision unlawful, prevent the funds from expiring and require that the entire congressionally mandated amount be spent on the program.
A spokesperson for HUD told The Washington Sun that the administration’s rescission is in accordance with President Donald Trump’s “constitutional responsibility that the laws are faithfully executed.”
“HUD is entrusted to ensure that taxpayer funds be deployed in alignment with the President’s policy agenda,” the spokesperson said.
A federal judge held a procedural hearing Wednesday afternoon but did not issue a ruling on the group’s request for relief. In response to the lawsuit, the administrationfiled a motion asking the court to deny the groups’ request, stating that the dispute concerned Congress and the executive branch.
The White House’s argument is that it has the authority to cancel funds under a “long-neglected Presidential” power known as a pocket rescission.
The housing groups contend in the lawsuit that that goes against the Impoundment Control Act.
“The Administration’s contrary ‘pocket rescission’ theory … is absurd as a matter of statutory interpretation,” the lawsuit said.
In announcing the rescissions, the administration said the organizations receiving the counseling funds were promoting what it calls “DEI-centric discriminatory agendas” and referred to recipients as “radical groups.”
The White House singled out the National Urban League and Housing Action Illinois, pointing to their positions on issues including racial justice, immigration and housing policy. The groups in the lawsuit say the policy positions were expressed independently and outside the federally funded program.
“This is not a case about whether the federal government may subsidize speech that advances policies the Administration disfavors; it is a case of the Administration defunding and shutting down a program because it does not like the non-program-related viewpoints of the organizations that receive the funding,” the lawsuit says.
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