Trump has promised to bring down mortgage rates, eliminate homelessness and deport millions of immigrants. New Haven will pay close attention to his moves in these issues.
Lily Belle Poling
1:59 am, Dec 03, 2024
Staff Reporter
Amy Cheng, Senior Photographer
As Americans — New Haveners especially — face an ever-intense housing crisis, concerns over housing affordability and availability became a top issue in November’s election.
While Democratic nominee Kamala Harris made housing policy one of the top priorities of her campaign, President-elect Donald Trump was more ambiguous about his plans. Trump says he wants to eliminate regulations on the construction of new homes and open up portions of federal land for large-scale housing construction. His platform Agenda47 mentions that he will promote homeownership through tax incentives and “support for first-time buyers.”
Trump also discussed homelessness in his platform, promising to eradicate veterans’ homelessness by the end of his second term and to “rescue American cities from the scourge of homelessness, the drug addicted, and the dangerously deranged.”
“It concerns me that I’ve heard no plan articulated by President Trump at all for what the federal government might do differently to support the efforts to address the housing crisis around the nation,” Mayor Justin Elicker said. “We are very concerned that there may be dramatic cuts to federal funding that support the growth that we’re seeing in the city and expansion of affordable units.”
New Haven has received funding from the Department of Housing and Urban Development for its affordable housing efforts. According to Elicker, HUD funding is key to subsidizing affordable units and ensuring their financial viability.
HUD has also funded various New Haven initiatives and nonprofits, as well as a number of city employee positions directly related to housing, Elicker said.
Under Trump’s new Department of Government Efficiency, Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy LAW ’13 hope to cut $500 billion in unauthorized government spending. Much of this spending goes toward housing assistance programs and state housing grants — the funding Elicker said is integral to New Haven’s affordable housing initiatives.
According to Jeff Gentes, a Yale Law School clinician who specializes in fair housing policy, the HUD Secretary is in the position to be a significant force when it comes to worsening or improving New Haven’s current housing dilemma.
“If you put somebody in who’s real, somebody who actually has experience and can pull it off, that’s going to help quite a bit,” he said, adding that Trump’s pick in his first administration, former neurosurgeon Ben Carson, was “a complete dope” when it came to the job.
Scott Turner, Trump’s HUD pick
For his second term, Trump has tapped former NFL player Scott Turner to lead HUD. Turner chairs the Center for Education Opportunity at the America First Policy Institute, a Trump-allied think tank.
Turner was previously the executive director of the White House Opportunity and Revitalization Council, where he spearheaded the advancement of opportunity zones, an economic development tool created under the first Trump administration that allows people to invest in distressed areas in the United States. 72 urban and suburban areas in Connecticut have been designated as opportunity zones, ten of which are in New Haven.
Although Turner has not explicitly stated his views on housing issues, the AFPI calls for addressing “root causes of homelessness” rather than focusing on Democrat’s often preferred “housing first” solutions, offering unconditional housing to homeless people as quickly as possible.
In New Haven, where homelessness is on the rise, homeless individuals, activists and policymakers alike have called for the creation of more affordable housing.
David Dworkin, CEO of the National Housing Conference, a think tank focused on equitable solutions for the housing crisis, reportedly praised Turner’s selection, citing his “commitment to community development” and advocacy “for investing in underserved communities.”
It remains unclear, however, how Turner’s leadership will affect HUD funding to the Elm City.
The Trump-Vance plan to lower housing cost
The Trump Administration has promised to carry out one of the largest deportation programs in American history, which is sure to bring down housing costs, they say. In a town hall with news anchor Chris Cuomo, JD Vance LAW ’13 claimed that “25 million illegal aliens” are taking homes away from American citizens, which “drive[s] the cost of housing through the roof.”
While New Haven, where the average rent for an apartment is $2,320 per month, would undoubtedly welcome lower prices, New Haven is also a “sanctuary city” and hosts a significant immigrant population.
Many economists say immigrants have little to do with the recent surge in housing costs. Some even think that mass deportation could make the crisis worse because immigrants make up a significant proportion of the workforce that supplies new developments.
Trump has also said that he wants to reduce regulations and divy up federal land for large-scale housing construction. While this would add to the housing supply, it is unclear how much of federal land would be available to urban places like New Haven that need large-scale development the most, in addition to the fact that Connecticut has the second-to-least amount of federally-owned land.
Trump and his campaign have also repeatedly promised to bring down mortgage rates. Although Trump has a history of pressuring the Federal Reserve to lower interest rates, his proposed tariffs raise concerns about increased inflation, which has a history of increasing mortgage rates.
Trump will assume office on Jan. 20, 2025.
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