How have funding responsibilities for military housing changed between the Biden and Trump administrations?
Executive summary
Federal responsibility for funding military and veterans’ housing shifted in form between the Biden and Trump periods: under Biden-era budgets and Pentagon practice, Congress and the Defense Department boosted military construction and family housing accounts (FY2025 requests and appropriations around $17.5–$19.3 billion) and annual Basic Allowance for Housing (BAH) increases covered roughly 95% of service members’ housing costs with the Pentagon estimating $29.2 billion in BAH payments for 2025 [1] [2]. The Trump administration has moved in a different direction on veterans’ housing programs and homelessness policy—ending the VA’s VASP mortgage rescue program in 2025 and shifting HUD homelessness funding away from “housing first” permanent housing toward transitional programs with conditions—actions that critics say reduce affordable options for veterans and other vulnerable people [3] [4].
1. Budget numbers and who pays for on-base and private housing
Congress and the Defense Department fund MILCON (military construction) and family housing accounts; FY2025 appropriations and statutory actions produced roughly $17.5 billion to $19.3 billion for those accounts, with P.L. actions and supplemental measures pushing total FY2025 DOD MILCON and family housing funding to about $19.307 billion—about 10% more than the administration’s request [1]. Separately, the Pentagon’s Basic Allowance for Housing (BAH) is a major cash outlay to troops: the department estimated it would pay $29.2 billion in BAH in 2025, a system designed to cover about 95% of housing costs with service members paying the remaining roughly 5% out of pocket [2].
2. Biden-era emphasis: higher BAH and statutory budgeting
Reporting shows that in the 2024–2025 window the Pentagon and Congress moved to raise BAH and preserve higher MILCON/family housing appropriations: BAH rose by 5.4% for 2025 (the second consecutive year with that increase) and the department’s fiscal requests reflected continued investment in construction and family housing accounts [2] [1]. Those moves reflect a budgetary approach that leans on sustained appropriations and rising personnel allowances to keep troops housed either via privatized on-base operators or through service-member rents paid with BAH [1] [2].
3. Trump administration actions: program cuts and policy redirections
The Trump administration ended the VA’s Veterans Affairs Servicing Purchase program (VASP) in 2025, saying it was "unilaterally created by the Biden Administration and lacks congressional authority"; critics warn that ending VASP without a replacement could leave veterans facing foreclosure and reduced options for affordable loan workouts [3]. At HUD, the Trump team reorganized homelessness funding away from permanent “housing first” models toward transitional programs with work or treatment conditions—moves described by the administration as restoring “accountability” but criticized for risking the stability of people already in permanent housing programs [4].
4. Consequences for veterans and enlisted households
Advocates and mortgage-industry groups warned that ending VASP could imperil thousands of veterans: roughly 90,000 VA loans were reported seriously past due in spring 2025, with 33,000 already in foreclosure processes, raising the stakes for any federal safety-net changes [3]. For enlisted families, BAH increases under the earlier approach limited out-of-pocket costs to an estimated $90–$202 per month in 2025, showing how allowance policy mitigates housing-cost pressure even as broader VA and HUD program changes affect veterans [2] [3].
5. Competing rationales and political framing
The Biden-era posture emphasized expanding allowances and congressional funding to stabilize service-member housing and to create administrative programs like VASP to prevent foreclosures; the Trump administration justified cuts to VASP on the grounds of lacking congressional authority and justified HUD’s funding changes as correcting a “housing first” approach it termed ineffective or a “slush fund” [3] [4]. Both sides frame decisions around authority, effectiveness and fiscal priorities; advocates note the practical risk that programmatic rollbacks produce immediate housing instability [3] [4].
6. What available sources do not mention
Available sources do not mention a comprehensive accounting that directly compares total dollars spent on all military and veterans’ housing programs across the entire Biden versus Trump administrations, nor do they provide a single reconciled metric tying MILCON/family housing appropriations, BAH outlays, HUD homelessness funding and VA program changes into one consolidated “who pays” picture (not found in current reporting). They also do not provide post-change outcomes (longer-term foreclosure or homelessness rates) tied causally to these policy shifts beyond contemporaneous warnings (not found in current reporting).
Limitations: this account uses the cited congressional summaries, military benefits reporting, and investigative coverage of VA and HUD policy changes; each source has a focus—budget figures from CRS/Congress.gov and program and policy reporting from NPR, Military.com and NPR/HUD coverage—which shapes what is quantified and what is characterized as risk or rationale [1] [2] [3] [4].