It’s clear actions taken or planned by the Trump administration could hurt Cambridge residents of low-income housing and the agencies that serve them, people involved with affordable housing say. The Cambridge Housing Authority and public interest lawyers representing tenants are deeply worried.
The housing authority survived a scare Jan. 28, when the administration ordered a “pause” in federal funding and it looked like the order applied to rent voucher programs that help more than 5,000 Cambridge households pay their rent. By evening federal authorities had said vouchers were exempt from the freeze; a judge temporarily struck down the order and the administration rescinded it.
This did not comfort CHA officials and commissioners when they met Feb. 12. “There are still questions about whether funds are flowing or not flowing,” executive director Michael Johnston said. Meanwhile, “we have two big battles looming”: anticipated deep cuts in the federal budget and a possible government shutdown, both next month, Johnston said.
More imminently, “we have been told that everything out of the HUD building is on hold,” he said. He referred to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, which oversees subsidized housing.
That could affect CHA’s plans to begin housing tenants next month in the renovated and expanded development for formerly homeless people at 116 Norfolk St., and for the second phase of the authority’s 275-unit Jefferson Park Federal project, in the works for years, Johnston said.
Johnston said Elon Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency – it is not a government department – is reportedly “in the HUD building now” examining “several hundred contracts” to see if they contain any reference to diversity, equity and inclusion or other initiatives Trump has vowed to eliminate.
He said senior CHA staff are meeting weekly to prepare for a government shutdown of a week or two weeks. “We probably have to think that whatever we spend during this shutdown we won’t get back retroactively,” unlike in previous government shutdowns, Johnston said.
CHA commissioner Susan Connelly urged the agency to prepare for the hardships in store by halting spending on planning for projects “in the pipeline” that have little chance of being built, she said. The agency should “hold as much money as we can to support residents if we need it,” Connelly said.
Challenges from Project 2025
The authority faces even bigger challenges from Project 2025, the right-wing plan to transform the government that was created in preparation for Trump’s election, she said.
Lawyers at Cambridge and Somerville Legal Services, which represents low-income tenants, said residents of subsidized housing could face “several dangers” from actions of the Trump administration, although “it is too soon to know their precise scope and impact.” The “most relevant” risk now is the reported decision to fire half the staff of HUD, “which could disrupt the administration of vital programs on which Cambridge residents rely to pay their rent,” the lawyers said.
The attorneys, Susan Hegel, Ryan Kenney and Courtney Libon, gave their opinion in an emailed statement in response to questions from Cambridge Day. Besides the concrete risks to low-income residents, “it’s worth noting the strong likelihood of increased stress and anxiety among especially vulnerable and historically disadvantaged Cambridge residents of public and subsidized housing as they navigate the threats to federal programs upon which they rely for survival (nutrition assistance, public benefits, etc.), although we don’t have data to support it,” the lawyers said.
More threats to residents
Other ways that “the current administration’s actions could directly and indirectly harm Cambridge residents living in public or subsidized housing” include “targeting the city of Cambridge based on its status as a sanctuary city, or residents losing jobs or public benefits due to federal actions which result in increased reliance on housing programs to avoid homelessness,” the attorneys said.
“One concrete example in our office is that the halt of federal funding has resulted in uncertainty as to whether we can fill a much-needed eviction defense position,” they said. The office was in a group of legal service programs that received a federal grant for eviction defense work in December. The grant had been “fully obligated by Congress,” the attorneys said.
Based on that assurance, Cambridge and Somerville Legal Services posted an opening for a paralegal who would spend half their time on eviction defense; many candidates responded, the lawyers said. After the Trump administration ordered a pause in federal funding, “the funding for this new position became uncertain and so as a result, we had to pause the hiring process,” they said. As a result, there is no paralegal at the organization.
A place for questions
“Mixed-status” families – households with some undocumented members – could also lose their housing; Project 2025 calls for barring any undocumented immigrants from subsidized housing, the lawyers said.
To help staff deal with the effects of federal policy changes and orders, the authority has set up a digital “box” in which employees can ask questions, and plans to do the same for residents, Johnston said. CHA has also participated in training sessions sponsored by the city on what to do if immigration enforcement agents show up at a workplace or residence. CHA general counsel Shayla Simmons prepared a fact sheet that was distributed to staff at at authority developments outlining how to react if immigration authorities come to a housing site.
The authority did the same thing in Trump’s first term, but “this is expanded,” Johnston said. The lawyers at Somerville and Cambridge Legal Services praised the authority “for swiftly providing detailed guidance to its staff on immigration rights and enforcement.”
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