New HUD Rule Would Increase Red Tape and Threaten Thousands of Mixed-Status Families with Housing Instability and Family Separation

A safe, stable home is one of the most important things a child needs to grow and thrive and something that parents and caregivers work tirelessly to provide. However, a recently proposed rule from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) puts families at risk of losing their housing and along with it that stability. The proposed rule, which would require that every member of a household receiving certain housing subsidies verify their status as a U.S. citizen or eligible immigrant, directly threatens an estimated 20,000 families with mixed immigration statuses and imposes new burdensome requirements on everyone receiving housing assistance.

Forces Mixed Status Families to Separate or Lose Housing Assistance

For years, HUD regulations have allowed mixed status households—households where some members are eligible for housing assistance, but others are not—to receive assistance on a prorated basis. According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, the typical mixed status family receiving housing assistance is a family of four, where three of the four family members are U.S. citizens eligible for rental assistance and the family is currently receiving three-quarters of the rental assistance they would receive if all members were eligible. Allowing mixed status families to receive housing benefits on a prorated basis enables children and caregivers to receive vital assistance for which they are eligible and promotes family stability and well-being.

This rule would reverse HUD’s longstanding practice by requiring that all members of a household be eligible for housing assistance for any members to receive it. It would force mixed status families to make an untenable choice: leave their subsidized housing together and risk homelessness for the entire family, or have the ineligible family member(s) leave the household, putting that person at risk of homelessness and putting the children who remain in the household at risk of losing a loving provider and a caregiver. The estimated 20,000 mixed status families receiving housing assistance include 37,000 children, nearly all of whom are U.S citizens.

For families who separate as a result of this rule change, the effects would be devastating. In many families, particularly immigrant families, extended family members such as grandparents, aunts, and uncles, are caregivers to children and integral members of the family unit. As the American Academy of Pediatrics has noted, “highly stressful experiences, like family separation, can cause irreparable harm, disrupting a child’s brain architecture and affecting his or her short- and long-term health.” Children in mixed-status families where the ineligible member leaves are likely to experience severe distress, in addition to economic hardship and unstable caregiving that may result from losing a trusted adult and family member.

Housing Instability Undermines the Health and Wellbeing of Children and Families

The families pushed out of subsidized housing as a result of this proposed rule would likely face significant difficulty finding other safe and affordable housing, threatening their health and wellbeing. According to HUD’s own Regulatory Impact Analysis, approximately half of the mixed status families in subsidized housing live in California and New York, states with high housing costs and limited affordable housing. Research has repeatedly shown that in families who do not have access to safe and stable housing, children experience long-term health and developmental consequences. They are more likely to experience developmental delays, go hungry, and miss important medical care. This stress and instability also takes a toll on caregivers, who are more likely to experience poorer health and maternal depressive symptoms when raising children in unstable housing.

On top of these serious health and developmental harms, research has also shown that families who experience housing instability or homelessness are at greater risk of child welfare system involvement. Children who are removed from their families have worse outcomes than their peers, and there is widespread agreement among child welfare experts that the focus should be on ensuring housing stability as a prevention mechanism, so that children and families are able to remain together and safe and do not need to interact with the child welfare system in the first place. When families do become involved in child welfare, and a child is removed and placed in foster care, housing insecurity can delay or prevent reunification, causing further harm to children and disrupting their foundational relationships.

Stable housing, on the other hand, can help prevent these problems. Studies show that when families receive housing assistance, children are healthier, do better in school, and have better outcomes later in life.

Poorly Designed Verification Process Increases Red Tape for Everyone

In addition to the already outlined harm to children and families, the proposed rule would also create new administrative barriers for families who are fully eligible for housing assistance. Under the rule, applicants and recipients of housing assistance would need to verify their citizenship or immigration status through the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) system, an online tool run by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) that searches federal databases for information on an individual’s immigration status. However, SAVE was not designed to and cannot reliably verify whether a particular person is a citizen. Reporting from ProPublica has shown that SAVE often inaccurately flags citizens as noncitizens when verifying citizenship for voting purposes, with error rates over 14% in some counties. SAVE search results are also not reliably conclusive; a Government Accountability Office (GAO) report found that 15-19% of SAVE inquiries required additional verification. HUD itself acknowledges the built-in limitations of the SAVE system.

Citizens who are misidentified as noncitizens by the SAVE system would be required to complete a secondary verification process and submit documentation of their citizenship (e.g., a birth certificate or passport). Millions of Americans do not have access to such documents. Recent surveys have found that one in ten adult citizens—or 21.3 million people—lack ready access to documentation of citizenship, meaning they could not access it the next day if they needed it, and 3.8 million people do not have any form of documentation of their citizenship at all. Former foster youth and unaccompanied homeless youth are especially likely to lack identification entirely and have a difficult time obtaining it. Under this rule, the consequences for lacking identification are severe: people who cannot access documentation and successfully complete the eligibility verification will lose housing assistance entirely.

Discourages Families from Seeking Help

This rule’s exclusion of mixed-status immigrant households from housing assistance, reliance on a flawed system to verify eligibility, and the Trump Administration’s well-documented attempts to share federal data with the Department of Homeland Security all work together to create justifiable fear and confusion that will likely prevent many eligible families from seeking out critically-need housing assistance. If implemented, the proposed rule will exacerbate the chilling effect that is already keeping many immigrant and mixed status families from participating in their communities, accessing essential services, and avoiding safety net programs because of immigration concerns. Families of any citizenship or immigration status may decide that it is too risky to apply for housing assistance, if anyone in the household is mistakenly flagged by SAVE as a noncitizen. As a result, even fully eligible families may forgo critical housing supports, robbing thousands of eligible children of the protective supports they need during a crucial period in their growth and development.

As a country, we should be making it easier for families to access safe, stable, and affordable housing—not harder. A pro-family housing agenda would support families’ ability to stay together and rely on one another for support, and make it simple and straightforward to apply for housing assistance and verify eligibility. Families come in all shapes and sizes, and millions of U.S. citizen and permanent resident children live in households where they love, rely on, and are cared for by relative with a different immigration status than theirs. HUD’s proposal would harm families and communities across the country, and it should be withdrawn in full.