by Jesse Coburn

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Some 4 million people could lose federal housing assistance under new plans from the Trump administration, according to experts who reviewed drafts of two unpublished rules obtained by ProPublica. The rules would pave the way for a host of restrictions long sought by conservatives, including time limits on living in public housing, work requirements for many people receiving federal housing assistance and the stripping of aid from entire families if one member of the household is in the country illegally.

The first Trump administration tried and failed to implement similar policies, and renewed efforts have been in the works since early in the president’s second term. Now, the documents obtained by ProPublica lay out how the administration intends to overhaul major housing programs that serve some of the nation’s poorest residents, with sweeping reforms that experts and advocates warn will weaken the social safety net amid historically high rents, home prices and homelessness.

“These are rules that are going to cause an enormous amount of hardship for millions of people in communities across the country,” said Will Fischer, director of housing policy at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a nonpartisan think tank. “It’s going to cause people to become homeless, kids to be pulled out of their schools, people to lose their jobs.”

A spokesperson for the Department of Housing and Urban Development, which drafted the rules, declined to comment.

The two rules obtained by ProPublica are labeled as drafts and could change before they are officially proposed. At a meeting at HUD headquarters this month, Ben Hobbs, who heads the agency’s public housing office, said the rules were under review at the Office of Management and Budget, according to a HUD official in attendance. (OMB typically reviews proposed rules for compliance with federal standards and consistency with the president’s policies.)

The push to adopt the rules is part of a broad effort to roll back federal housing programs under........

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