Former PIH Assistant Secretary Pens Critical Opinion Piece against Budget Proposal

Orlando Cabrera, former assistant secretary for Public and Indian Housing under President George W. Bush, recently wrote an opinion piece for a political website, The Hill, entitled “Trump's plan to cut public housing is a mistake for America.”

President Trump’s fiscal year 2018 budget proposal cuts $1.9 billion to the operating and capital funds of public housing agencies nationwide. According to Cabrera, such deep cuts will effectively cripple the agencies and shutter thousands of units that currently serve low-income households. “Public housing is an invaluable and long-ignored national asset,” writes Cabrera, “that desperately needs Congress’s support in order to continue to change and better serve our nation’s communities.” He also stated, “If the President’s budget were to be adopted, we would experience the single biggest budget-driven deliberate loss of an essential federally created public asset in our nation’s history.”