The Bay Area is already one of the hardest places in the country to keep a roof overhead. Now a new federal budget proposal would make that task dramatically harder. The Partnership for the Bay’s Future and the San Francisco Foundation partnered with the Urban Institute to examine the local impact of the White House’s FY2026 proposal to slash HUD housing support by more than half nationally.
Our hope is that Urban’s recently released analysis equips funders, policymakers, advocates, and community leaders with the data needed to sharpen your work. Use this resource to localize the impact, inform strategies, and strengthen collective efforts to defend the housing stability of Bay Area families.
In 2023, over 210,000 Bay Area residents relied on HUD rental assistance to stay stably housed.
The Bay Area alone could lose $1.3 billion in federal housing funds, jeopardizing housing stability for more than 90,000 residents. For communities already grappling with deep racial and economic inequities, the consequences would be devastating.
In 2023, over 210,000 Bay Area residents relied on HUD rental assistance to stay stably housed. Many of them are low-income renters, Black, Latino, and Indigenous households, and people with disabilities—groups already overrepresented in the region’s housing crisis. Cutting off these supports would dismantle decades of investment in stability, and push tens of thousands closer to displacement. Beyond the human toll, these cuts are also short-sighted as homelessness prevention is far more cost-effective than emergency response.
What the Data Shows in the Bay Area
The underlying dataset published by Urban shows how that support shows up in real places. Some communities carry especially high shares of residents who depend on federal help:
- Oakland: ~34,000 residents, or 7.8% of the city’s population are served by HUD programs
- Antioch: ~6,500 residents (5.6%)
- Richmond: ~5,600 residents (4.8%)
- San Francisco: ~37,000 residents (4.5%)
- San José: ~34,500 residents (3.5%)
At the county level, 2023 federal funds flowing into the region included approximately $192 million through Continuum of Care (CoC) homelessness programs, $79 million from the Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) program, $36 million from the HOME Investment Partnerships Program, and $52 million in public housing funds—programs that collectively build, preserve, and operate affordable homes and sustain the homelessness response infrastructure.
Many who rely on HUD rental assistance are low-income renters, Black, Latino, and Indigenous households, and people with disabilities—groups already overrepresented in the region’s housing crisis.
Urban’s analysis estimates losses by eliminating CDBG and HOME and reducing combined rental assistance by 42% under the proposed FY2026 structure, with time limits that would push many households off assistance after two years. The result is a stark picture: tens of thousands of households would face the risk of displacement.
The burden of these cuts would fall heaviest on the communities already facing systemic barriers to housing. Low-income renters and households of color would bear the brunt of displacement pressures. Eliminating flexible place-based tools while shrinking rental assistance undermines anti-displacement strategies, threatens permanent supportive housing, and risks unraveling the evidence-based homelessness response built over decades.
The proposed budget would unravel decades of federal investment in affordable housing and destabilize communities across the Bay Area. If enacted, these cuts would strip away lifelines for tens of thousands of households, deepening inequities and straining already overburdened local systems.
What We Can Do
Action is urgently needed, and some local leaders are already fighting back. Earlier this year, San Francisco’s City Attorney successfully blocked unlawful HUD restrictions that would have put 1,400 residents at risk of homelessness. The proposed cuts are not inevitable; they can be challenged, and local action matters.
The Bay Area is a case study with national implications. Federal housing programs are the backbone of stability for thousands of residents, and weakening them would destabilize families, communities, and the regional economy. We cannot allow decades of federal housing investment to be undone. Now is the time to act.
