As the 2025 legislative session gets underway in Hartford, it’s hard not to have thoughts that wander further south. For while there are big issues to debate in Connecticut, so much of what happens in the coming years will be determined by the new administration soon to take over in Washington, D.C.

Much is unknown, and the Trump experience in national politics has been nothing if not unpredictable. In this case, we have the precedent of a previous White House term to look back on, but there’s no telling if that history will repeat itself.

In 2017, when the first Trump administration took power, housing policy was not front of mind nationally. The president chose Ben Carson, a former rival for the presidential nomination who had gained fame as a surgeon and public speaker, to lead the Department of Housing and Urban Development, despite nothing in Carson’s history that would indicate an interest in or aptitude for housing policy.

The four years of Trump’s first presidential term continued with little publicity for HUD or its initiatives. Carson ran into some controversy over spending in his office, but in general, the agency continued to function as it had in previous terms, advocates say. Some housing agencies reported receiving as much or more in funding under Trump as they had earlier. 

Housing came into greater focus in Trump’s 2020 reelection campaign, which he ultimately lost to Joe Biden. As The New York Times described it, “President Trump vowed … to protect suburbanites from low-income housing being built in their neighborhoods, making an appeal to white suburban voters by trying to stir up racist fears about affordable housing and the people who live there.”

At the same time, Trump moved in 2020 to repeal Obama-era regulations implementing the statutory obligation to “affirmatively further fair housing” as detailed in the 1968 Fair Housing Act. The law, passed under President Lyndon Johnson, banned discrimination even as it “required meaningful actions to undo decades of federal, state, and local discriminatory policies and practices that resulted in segregated communities,” according to the National Low Income Housing Coalition. 

Now there is renewed concern as Trump once again prepares to take power. Scott Turner, a former Texas legislator, has been nominated to lead HUD, but much of what he has in mind is uncertain. Without question, the rhetoric from Trump and his team has been concerning.

Project 2025, the conservative playbook for a Republican return to power, envisions a dismantling of the agency. Though Trump has claimed Project 2025 will not guide his administration, many of its authors are former aides and conservative stalwarts. There is significant cause for concern. 

In his first term, Trump repeatedly sought major funding cuts at HUD, but was thwarted by Congress. There is every reason to expect such efforts will resume. 

Project 2025 has also called for prioritizing “any and all legislative support for the single-family home,” as reported by Shelterforce, even as in states like Connecticut more than 90 percent of residential land is already reserved for single-family development. Without federal support for multifamily development and greater density, achieving affordability becomes that much harder.

The greatest dangers lie in funding, where Congress ultimately makes the decisions, and regulations, where the administration is more unfettered. Not every Republican views housing the way Trump appears to, but there is the potential for serious harm to current policies. The best hope for housing advocates is likely that, similar to eight years ago, housing policy remains low on the new administration’s priority list and can emerge relatively unscathed.