{"id":361652,"date":"2026-10-01T07:34:41","date_gmt":"2026-10-01T07:34:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/361652\/"},"modified":"2026-10-01T07:34:41","modified_gmt":"2026-10-01T07:34:41","slug":"attorney-general-james-sues-trump-administration-to-protect-housing-counseling-for-new-yorkers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/361652\/","title":{"rendered":"Attorney General James Sues Trump Administration to Protect Housing Counseling for New Yorkers"},"content":{"rendered":"

NEW YORK \u2013 New York Attorney General Letitia James today sued the Trump administration to stop it from cutting off funding that helps New Yorkers buy their first homes, stay in the homes they have, and manage their rent and finances<\/a>. The lawsuit, filed on the last day of the federal fiscal year, challenges the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) refusal to award approximately $56.1 million that Congress set aside for housing counseling nationwide, part of the president\u2019s so-called \u201cpocket recissions.\u201d That funding is set to expire at midnight tonight, and New York stands to lose more than a million dollars in support for thousands of vulnerable New Yorkers statewide.<\/p>\n

\u201cHousing counselors help New Yorkers buy their first homes, keep the homes they have, and stay on top of rent and other bills,\u201d said Attorney General James. \u201cFor decades, Congress has awarded funding to support these critical efforts. Now, the Trump administration is cruelly running out the clock so these funds disappear at midnight. I am going to court tonight to make sure New York families can still get the help they need.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWith housing costs on the rise thanks to the dangerous policies pushed by the Trump administration, canceling this funding threatens to push even more Americans to the brink,\u201d said Governor Kathy Hochul. \u201cHere in New York, we\u2019re not backing down, and with the support of Attorney General James, we\u2019re pushing back on the federal government to restore this funding and deliver for our residents.\u201d<\/p>\n

For\u00a0nearly\u00a060\u00a0years, HUD has funded programs that give homeowners, homebuyers, and renters the information they need to succeed in the housing market, including guidance on\u00a0financial management, financial literacy, and property maintenance.\u00a0Every year since 2013, the New York State Housing Finance Agency\u00a0has received\u00a0up to $1 million in\u00a0housing counseling funds\u00a0from HUD.\u00a0The agency then passes the grant money on to 22 HUD-certified housing counseling organizations statewide, each of which receives\u00a0between $20,000 and $100,000 per year.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In March 2026, HUD opened applications for this year’s funding, set\u00a0an anticipated\u00a0award date of August 3, 2026, and said it expected to make about 175 awards nationwide.\u00a0New York\u00a0submitted its application on May 22, 2026, and HUD confirmed it was complete, but then went silent. Without explanation, New York never received any of the expected federal housing counselor funding. Some New York counseling organizations have already begun the work these funds were meant to cover.\u00a0<\/p>\n

On September 25, 2026, just five days before the funds were set to expire, President Trump announced a pocket rescission\u00a0of\u00a0nearly $1 billion\u00a0in federal spending, including\u00a0the housing counselor program. A pocket rescission is a request to Congress to cancel funding, sent so late in the fiscal year that the money lapses before Congress can act. In announcing the move, the administration attacked housing counseling grantees as\u00a0\u201cradical groups\u201d\u00a0and\u00a0\u201cfar-left\u201d\u00a0organizations, faulting them for positions such as believing that housing is a human right. None of these claims\u00a0have\u00a0anything to do with the counseling services\u00a0funded by\u00a0Congress.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In the lawsuit, Attorney General James emphasizes that\u00a0Congress already rejected the administration’s attempt to end this program. The\u00a0president’s Fiscal Year 2026 budget proposed\u00a0eliminating\u00a0housing counseling funding entirely. Congress refused\u00a0that proposal\u00a0and fully funded the program in the appropriations law signed on February 3, 2026.\u00a0In the same law, Congress included a measure expressly barring\u00a0agencies from eliminating or reducing a program unless Congress enacts the change.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In 2024, this funding helped\u00a0New York\u00a0prevent more than 250 evictions and almost 300 foreclosures and helped\u00a0nearly 300\u00a0first-time homebuyers close on their first home.\u00a0Now,\u00a0as a result of\u00a0the president\u2019s\u00a0pocket rescission, over 7,000 households\u00a0in New York\u00a0are at risk of losing access to one-on-one counseling services, and\u00a0nearly 2,800\u00a0households may lose financial\u00a0assistance\u00a0to improve their living conditions.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Attorney\u00a0General James\u00a0argues\u00a0that HUD’s actions violate the Administrative Procedure Act, the federal housing counseling statute, and federal appropriations laws. Federal law\u00a0requires the\u00a0HUD Secretary\u00a0to\u00a0make financial\u00a0assistance\u00a0available to HUD-approved housing counseling agencies and state housing finance agencies, which the administration is now refusing to do.\u00a0Attorney General James\u00a0also argues that HUD acted arbitrarily by basing its decision on the perceived political views of grantees, a factor Congress never authorized, and by ignoring the harm to more than 2,200 housing counseling agencies and 6,700 housing counselors nationwide who rely on this funding.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Attorney General James\u00a0is\u00a0asking the court to declare HUD’s actions unlawful,\u00a0block HUD from letting the funds lapse, and preserve the funding past today’s deadline so\u00a0New York can\u00a0ultimately receive\u00a0its award.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NEW YORK \u2013 New York Attorney General Letitia James today sued the Trump administration to stop it from…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":361653,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[9810,9,24,63,134,136,135],"class_list":["post-361652","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-staten-island","tag-federal-initiatives","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-staten-island","tag-staten-island-headlines","tag-staten-island-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/361652","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=361652"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/361652\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/361653"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=361652"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=361652"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=361652"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}