Members of immigrant families living together help one another thrive and contribute their talents and hard work to our communities. All families should be given the freedom to support each other as best they can, but the Trump Administration’s proposed rule would prohibit families with mixed immigration statuses from living in subsidized or public housing. It would cause both citizen and non-citizen members of immigrant families to be evicted simply for sharing a household with a non-citizen family member who is ineligible for housing assistance. With a nationwide shortage of affordable housing, this proposed rule would cause thousands of people, including older adults and children to live on the streets. Thousands more families will choose to separate or forgo vital housing assistance out of fear.

Join the Keep Families Together Campaign in reaching our goal of submitting 25,000 comments for the 25,000 mixed status families who are at risk of homelessness because of the HUD mixed status families rule.

Comment today using the talking points below and join the conversation on social media using #KeepFamiliesTogether.

Use this form to send individual and unique comments to HUD by July 9. Click here to comment in Spanish.

Organizations can use this muli-sector template comment letter and submit comments directly on Regulations.gov by July 9.

  • Federal housing assistance programs provide vital support to 1.9 million older adults who would otherwise be unable to afford the cost of shelter. If enacted, this proposed rule could cause many of them, both U.S. citizens and noncitizens, to become homeless.
  • Seniors with fixed incomes are especially at risk of serious harm if they live in mixed status families and lose rental assistance due to the rule because they have such limited resources to spend on other basic needs, including food, medicine, transportation, and clothing.
  • The proposed rule would also make it impossible for many intergenerational families to live together and share resources that enable them to succeed. It ignores the critical roles many grandparents play in caring for their grandchildren and other family members, as well as the role adult children play in caring for their aging parents and relatives.
  • The proposed rule adds new documentation requirements that will be particularly burdensome on older adults: it will require all U.S. citizens to provide proof of citizenship, and will also require the 120,000 noncitizens 62 years old or over who rely on housing assistance to provide additional documentation of their immigration status.
  • At least 12 percent of citizens earning less than $25,000 a year do not have proof of citizenship, and almost 1 in 5 U.S. citizens who are over the age of 65 and 1 in 4 African Americans do not have a photo ID.
  • Older citizens face many challenges in getting this kind of documentation, including difficulties getting to government offices to replace lost records, coming up with the funds to replace these records, and some may have never been issued these documents in the first place. These challenges are even greater for people with disabilities and people who have limited income or were formerly homeless.
  • Adding more documentation requirements creates more barriers to housing for those who need it most, especially older adults who experience homelessness.