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Renters and cities face new limits in HUD spending bill
The House measure would bar HUD from pushing grantees into zoning changes tied to fair-housing revisions and from enforcing the temporary eviction filing moratorium. It also would block updates to minimum energy-efficiency standards for some federally financed homes.
In Washington, the federal HUD spending bill puts two brakes on the Department of Housing and Urban Development at once. One rider says no money in the act can be used to direct a grantee to make specific changes to existing zoning laws. Another says the same money cannot be used to enforce the temporary moratorium on eviction filings.
Representative Steve Womack, an Arkansas Republican, wrote the measure. The practical effect is to take away two federal tools that can shape what local governments do with land use and what housing officials can do when eviction policy is on the line.
The zoning fight
The zoning restriction is tied to HUD’s interim final rule on Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing, or AFFH, Revisions, issued March 3, 2025. That matters because zoning is where federal fair-housing goals often run into local control over density, lot sizes and what kinds of housing can be built where.
This rider would not erase fair-housing rules. It would narrow how hard HUD can push grantees to change their zoning codes as part of carrying out that rule, which leaves cities and counties with more room to resist a federal nudge they may not want.
The eviction backstop
The other provision targets the temporary moratorium on eviction filings. By blocking the use of appropriated money to enforce it, the bill cuts off a federal backstop that matters to renters facing removal, landlords trying to collect rent and housing groups that work between them.
That does not end eviction law itself. It does, however, strip HUD of enforcement leverage in a fight that can decide whether a family stays housed long enough to catch up or gets pushed out before a case is resolved.
Why the riders matter together
Taken together, the two sections use spending language to pull federal pressure back from both ends of the housing system. One limits how HUD can influence local land use. The other limits how far it can go on eviction enforcement.
For people watching housing policy, the significance is less about paperwork than power. These riders decide who gets to move first, and who has to live with the result.
The bill’s language sits inside the Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2027, which means the policy change is being carried through the department’s budget rather than a separate housing overhaul.