Latest news with #Hopkins
USA Today
a day ago
- Sport
- USA Today
WATCH: DeAndre Hopkins arrives for Baltimore Ravens training camp
DeAndre Hopkins, a veteran wide receiver and future Hall of Famer, arrived at the Under Armour Performance Center for Ravens training camp .@DeAndreHopkins reporting for Training Camp The Baltimore Ravens are gearing up for the 2025 NFL season, which features plenty of new and returning faces within the organization. Several players, coaches, and front-office members are crucial to the team's success this season. One big addition was star wide receiver DeAndre Hopkins. Hopkins, a veteran wide receiver and future Hall of Famer, can help make the Ravens' passing game more efficient in the most significant moments. Training camp reporting day is Tuesday, and the efficient wide receiver was among the first players to arrive at the Under Armour Performance Center. Background Position: WR Age: 33 Experience: 13-year pro 2025 cap hit: $2,004,000 2024 recap Hopkins posted his seventh 1,000-yard season in 2023 with the Tennessee Titans and was still productive last year. Following a trade from the Tennessee Titans to the Kansas City Chiefs in October, he caught 41 passes for 437 yards and four touchdowns for the Chiefs over the final 10 regular-season games. Hopkins added three receptions during the postseason and caught a touchdown pass and a two-point conversion for the Chiefs during their loss to the Philadelphia Eagles in Super Bowl LIX. 2025 outlook The move gives the Ravens a legit third option at wide receiver and one of the NFL's most efficient trios of pass catchers. Hopkins, most importantly, provides quarterback Lamar Jackson with an elite red zone target. Biggest question: Can Hopkins take Ravens' passing game to bigger heights? Of the 70 wide receivers who've had 500 targets since 2013, Hopkins has the fifth-lowest drop rate at 1.6%. Last season, the Ravens' wide receivers ranked 30th in the NFL with a 5.1% drop rate. With the opposing defenses likely to lock in on Derrick Henry even more in 2025, Hopkins provides the Ravens with an elite pass catcher who'll produce in the most challenging moments. Hopkins has been one of his generation's most productive wide receivers, having been selected to five Pro Bowls and named first-team All-Pro three times. Since entering the league in 2013, his 984 receptions lead all wide receivers, and his 12,965 receiving yards top all players.
San Francisco Chronicle
4 days ago
- Business
- San Francisco Chronicle
‘Just plain horrible': Prolonged Caltrans construction in California resort town has locals fuming
Last winter, Jennifer Gilbert drove into Guerneville, but the bohemian town she'd loved since childhood seemed to be gone. Barricades choked block after block of Main Street. Construction vehicles and equipment were strewn about. Instead of stopping, she kept driving. 'I thought, 'Oh no what happened?'' the Woodside resident said. Fast-forward to June, and Caltrans construction barricades still lined Main Street, with seemingly no place for pedestrians to walk. Rivertime Restaurant and Bar owner Leslie 'Jo' Crane said she routinely found orange-and-white striped barricades blocking the door of her business without warning, but she couldn't afford to close so she would push them aside. 'It was ridiculous — people didn't realize we were open,' Crane said. The $6.6 million project to redo four blocks of sidewalks, launched last September, was supposed to wrap up before the crucial summer season when businesses earn most of their income. But the project has dragged into July. Though most sidewalks have reopened in the past several weeks, allowing tourists to park and walk freely again, construction isn't fully done. A Caltrans spokesperson said the project is expected to be complete sometime this fall. 'It's been a mess,' said Nick Schwanz, Russian River Chamber of Commerce president and owner of Solar Punk Farms, a queer-run regenerative farm and event space. 'Welcome to Caltrans,' Sonoma County Supervisor Lynda Hopkins said. Caltrans spokesperson Jeffrey Weiss said the project to upgrade Guerneville's sidewalks to comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act was originally slated to begin last summer. Caltrans delayed the project start 'to minimize construction impacts on merchants during the town's busy summer season,' he said in an email. Once underway, the project hit multiple delays, such as when 'the contractor encountered unexpected underground utility wires that were inactive and not previously documented,' he said. Philip Tymon, a longtime Guerneville resident and chair of volunteer-run nonprofit River Arts, said he and others were initially excited that the sidewalk project might create opportunities to spiff up the gritty, bohemian outpost and make it look and feel like a gateway to the towns and beaches dotting the lower Russian River. But workers poured concrete in an area slated for native plant gardens. Schwanz and Hopkins said the chamber received Caltrans' blessing to paint a rainbow crosswalk where westbound River Road enters town — an apt symbol for the LGBTQ oasis. But Hopkins said they were informed this week the rainbow project was on hold because Caltrans would now require the county to seek a permit and easement to add color to pavement. 'We've had plans for rainbow crosswalks, we've had plans for a mural, we've had plans for plantings. And honestly Caltrans keeps changing its mind or making mistakes,' Hopkins said. Hopkins and business owners said it seemed that Caltrans was operating as if it was repaving a highway — as opposed to doing construction in the middle of a town where local businesses need to stay afloat. Ryan Leong, another Caltrans spokesperson, acknowledged that crews had mistakenly paved an area where the community had planned a garden and said it was working with the contractor 'to make that correction.' He said the agency was looking into the rainbow crosswalk issue but couldn't provide comment in time for publication. 'The current plans do not include any landscaping components,' he said in a statement. 'However, Caltrans will coordinate with local officials on any future efforts to add landscaping throughout the Downtown Guerneville area.' Leong didn't respond to the overall complaints from Guerneville about how the agency managed the project. Douglas DeVivo, owner of Blue Door Gallery, said he'd grown so despondent over the financial loss that he had begun planning to close his business for good. Many business owners reported their revenue had plummeted 30% to 50% so far this year, compared with last year. 'It was horrible, just plain horrible,' DeVivo said. Across the street at Piknik Town Market, owner Mags van der Veen said the impact 'was pretty severe.' 'People driving home from the coast — they wouldn't stop for lunch. They'd just keep on driving,' van der Veen said. Like many small towns across California, a state highway also serves as Main Street in Guerneville. That has left Guerneville residents few avenues to weigh in on how revamping their town — from business disruptions to aesthetics — might unfold. Guerneville is unincorporated and has no city council. The town's tax revenue flows into general county coffers. Hopkins represents the area in a sprawling district from Sebastopol to Fort Ross on the coast. 'It certainly should not take this long and be this painful and have this much economic impact,' said Hopkins, who for a time had to duck under yellow caution tape to get to her Guerneville district office. 'And yet we have zero authority over Caltrans.' The Russian River Chamber of Commerce held a fundraiser in May. Schwanz said the group distributed $18,000 among 26 businesses based on need — not enough, but something, he said. The project included widening sidewalks, installing 23 curb ramps to accommodate wheelchairs, adding traffic signals and sidewalk bulb-outs at corners crossings as well as two pedestrian beacons. It is also adding railings to the Fife Creek Bridge on the western end of town. The construction has dampened what is otherwise unfolding as a renaissance for the Russian River destination after a historic 2019 flood and pandemic-sparked business closures. New businesses such as the River Eclectic resort and swim club are drawing locals and visitors alike. Others are anticipated to open, including the Guerneville Social Club on Fourth Street. Hopkins said that some delays have been understandable, and she was told the contractor had no documentation for the pipes or old growth redwood stumps under the sidewalk's surface. Weiss also said that during the sidewalk excavation, crews 'noticed that the roadway drainage was in poor condition and extensive repairs were made.' 'To give them a small amount of grace, oftentimes old towns built a long time ago have unexpected challenges,' Hopkins said. 'And, yet, you should be prepared for that.' Today, there are signs the project is wrapping up. Rows and rows of barriers that blocked off Main Street sidewalks are mostly down. Bright white sidewalks have replaced the gritty and gray old concrete. Caltrans said the remaining work involves bump outs of the sidewalk at corners and signal lights to make pedestrian crossings safer. On a recent warm Saturday afternoon, people clinked glasses at sidewalk tables along the northern side of Main Street. Tan in Tevas and crop tops, a group of tourists stopped to look at a sun hat display outside a shop. Children skipped holding ice cream cones from Nimble and Finn's. U.S. flags flapped outside business doors — originally hung for the town's Fourth of July parade. Gilbert, who didn't stop last winter, was back on a recent July weekend and sat sipping sangria at a sidewalk table outside Trillium Winebar & Taproom, named for the flowers that thrive in the shade of redwood trees. Many business owners said they believed they would eventually rebound, but they want to help the next Main Street town on a state highway avoid a similar headache. 'If I had advice for the next community — get a lawyer,' DeVivo said.
Miami Herald
5 days ago
- Health
- Miami Herald
‘A quiet leader.' Miami Air Force veteran who inspired others dies at 92
Leonard Hopkins and his fellow Black military veterans were regulars at a Miami McDonald's every morning except Christmas. They laughed, traded war stories and discussed current events over cups of coffee and orange juice. One of Hopkins' sons said that even though he was a 'quiet leader,' his presence spoke volumes. 'He would say, when you walk in the room, people want to know who you are,' said son Stephen Hopkins, 65. 'When you leave the room they will want to know who you were.' Leonard Hopkins, 92, died of prostate cancer on Sunday, July 13 at Bruce W. Carter Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Center. The Brownsville resident was born at his family's Coconut Grove home on June 17, 1933. His father built the home in which Leonard and his nine siblings grew up. From a young age, Leonard used to go to his Bahamian grandfather's bicycle shop on Charles Avenue. 'He had a thing about mechanics since he was very little,' said Donald Hopkins, 83., one of Leonard's brothers. With a passion for mechanics, Leonard Hopkins went to Lindsey Hopkins Technical School days after he graduated from high school to study aviation. Because of racism, however, Hopkins was turned away and instead joined the U.S. Air Force. That decision ended up changing his life. Hopkins served in the Korean War aboard a B-36 airplane that he said had enough fuel to travel around the world in a single trip. The racism Leonard experienced in the United States only made him want to excel more in the Air Force. 'Miami was segregated and there was discrimination when [we] grew up,' Donald Hopkins said. 'It was irritating, but it was also motivating. That was strong motivation for a lot of Black folks in the days when U.S. society was even more discriminatory than now.' Donald Hopkins remembers the day about 10 years ago when he and Lelo — his nickname for his brother — talked about the nuts and bolts of the airplane. 'I just remember hearing from time to time, 'That was the plane I flew when I was in the Air Force,' ' he said. 'I was in my mid-70s then. I was just learning this because he had never talked about it before. I then arranged and shipped to him a model of the B-36.' After Donald sent Leonard the model airplane, Leonard Hopkins visited the National Museum of the U.S. Air Force. Hopkins knew the B-36 on display so well that he corrected a tour guide and ended up telling other visitors about the plane. When he finished his Air Force service, Hopkins returned to Miami and worked as a mechanic at Greyhound for more than 30 years. Hopkins never seemed to complain about anything. But as a military veteran, one subject made him unhappy. 'One of my sisters said to me that I don't recall seeing Lelo complain about anything other than the political situation in the U.S. right now,' Donald Hopkins said. Leonard Hopkins' passion for airplanes came only second to his passion for family life. If he wasn't at work or with his family, he was nearby at a friend's house. When dinner was ready, Stephen would go down the street to let his dad know. 'That's the thing that stands out with me as a father and a husband,' Stephen Hopkins said. 'If I'm not at work, I'm at home every night. The furthest he would be was at a best friend's house three houses down. They would sit around and talk about different things like war stories. He was truly a family man.' Leonard Hopkins is survived by three sons and their wives, 12 grandchildren and 17 great-grandchildren. Range Funeral Home is handling arrangements. Funeral services will be July 23 at the South Florida National Cemetery in western Lake Worth in Palm Beach County.
Los Angeles Times
6 days ago
- Business
- Los Angeles Times
More than one million of the poorest renters risk losing their homes with Trump's proposed policy
Havalah Hopkins rarely says no to the chain restaurant catering gigs that send her out to Seattle-area events — from church potlucks to office lunches and graduation parties. The delivery fees and tips she earns on top of $18 an hour mean it's better than minimum-wage shift work, even though it's not consistent. It helps her afford the government-subsidized apartment she and her 14-year-old autistic son have lived in for three years, though it's still tough to make ends meet. 'It's a cycle of feeling defeated and depleted, no matter how much energy and effort and tenacity you have towards surviving,' Hopkins said. Still, the 33-year-old single mother is grateful she has stable housing — experts estimate just 1 in 4 low-income households eligible for U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development rental assistance get the benefits. And now Hopkins is at risk of losing her home, as federal officials move to restrict HUD policy. Amid a worsening national affordable housing and homelessness crisis, President Donald Trump's administration is determined to reshape HUD's expansive role providing stable housing for low-income people, which has been at the heart of its mission for generations. The proposed changes include a two-year limit on the federal government's signature rental assistance programs. At a June congressional budget hearing, HUD Secretary Scott Turner argued policies like time limits will fix waste and fraud in public housing and Section 8 voucher programs. 'It's broken and deviated from its original purpose, which is to temporarily help Americans in need,' Turner said. 'HUD assistance is not supposed to be permanent.' But the move to restrict such key subsidies would mark a significant retreat from the scope of HUD's work. Millions of tenants moved in with the promise of subsidized housing for as long as they were poor enough to remain qualified, so time limits would be a seismic shift that could destabilize the most vulnerable households, many unlikely to ever afford today's record-high rents. New research from New York University, obtained exclusively by The Associated Press and published Thursday, found that if families were cut off after two years, 1.4 million households could lose their vouchers and public housing subsidies — largely working families with children. This would lead housing authorities to evict many families, the report said. A broad time limit would cause 'substantial disruption and dislocation,' it said, noting the policy is largely untested and most of the few housing authorities to voluntarily try it eventually abandoned the pilots. A break from HUD's long-held purpose of helping house the poor could also jeopardize its contracts with private landlords, who say they're already feeling the uncertainty as public housing authorities from Seattle to Atlanta announce they're scaling back in anticipation of federal funding cuts. Critics fear the restriction could derail those working towards self-sufficiency — defeating the goal time-limit supporters hope to achieve. HUD spokesperson Kasey Lovett pushed back on the NYU study. 'There is plenty of data that strongly supports time limits and shows that long-term government assistance without any incentive disincentivizes able-bodied Americans to work,' Lovett said in a statement. She primarily cited statistics suggesting low employment among HUD-subsidized tenants. Hopkins said the policy would likely leave her and her son homeless in an economy that often feels indifferent to working poor people like her. 'A two-year time limit is ridiculous,' she said. 'It's so disrespectful. I think it's dehumanizing — the whole system.' Researchers from the Housing Solutions Lab at New York University's Furman Center analyzed HUD's data over a 10-year period and found about 70% of households who could be affected by a two-year limit had already been living on those subsidies for two or more years. That's based on 2024 estimates and doesn't include elderly and disabled people who wouldn't be subject to time limits. Exempted households make up about half of the roughly 4.9 million households getting rental assistance. In the first study to examine the proposed policy's possible impacts, the NYU researchers found time limits would largely punish families who are working but earning far below their area's median income, which would ultimately shift federal rental assistance away from households with kids. 'Housing assistance is especially impactful for children,' said Claudia Aiken, the study co-author and director of new research partnerships for the Housing Solutions Lab. Their health, education, employment and earnings potential can 'change in really meaningful ways if they have stable housing,' she said. It would affect people like Hopkins, whose family was on a years-long waitlist in the expensive region where she grew up. In July 2022, she and her son moved into a two-bedroom public housing unit in Woodinville, Washington. She pays $450 a month in rent — 30% of her household income. A market-rate apartment in the area costs at least $2,000 more, according to the King County Housing Authority, which in June announced it would pause issuing some new vouchers. Hopkins knows she could never afford to live in her home state without rental assistance. It was a relief they could stay as long as they needed. She had been struggling to scrape together hundreds of dollars more a month for her previous trailer home. 'There's no words to put on feeling like your housing is secure,' Hopkins said. 'I feel like I was gasping for air and I'm finally able to breathe.' She credits the housing subsidy for her ability to finally leave an abusive marriage, and still dreams of more — perhaps her own catering business or working as a party decorator. 'We all can't be lawyers and doctors — and two years isn't enough to even become that,' Hopkins said. Since learning of Trump's proposal, Hopkins said she's been haunted by thoughts of shoving her possessions into a van with her son, upending the stability she built for him. The average household in HUD-subsidized housing stays about six years, studies show. HUD funds local public housing projects where nearly 1 million households live and the Section 8 vouchers that about 4 million households use to offset their private rentals. There's been little guidance from HUD on how time-limited housing assistance would be implemented — how it would be enforced, when the clock starts and how the exemptions would be defined. Both Democrats and Republicans have acknowledged the potential for time limits to help curb HUD's notorious waitlists. Hard-liners contend the threat of housing loss will push people to reach self-sufficiency; others see limits, when coupled with support and workforce incentives, as a means to motivate tenants to improve their lives. Yet there are strikingly few successful examples. NYU researchers identified just 17 public housing authorities that have tested time limits. None of the programs were designed for only two years and 11 abandoned the restriction — despite being able to use federal dollars for services to help people achieve self-sufficiency. Several agencies that dropped the limits said tenants still struggled to afford housing after their time was up. 'These policies are complex and difficult to monitor, enforce, and do well,' NYU's Aiken said. The city of Keene, New Hampshire, tried five-year time limits starting in 2001, but terminated the policy before fully enforcing it to avoid kicking out households that would still be 'rent burdened, or potentially homeless,' said Josh Meehan, executive director of Keene Housing. In California, Shawnté Spears of the Housing Authority of San Mateo County said the agency has kept its five-year time limit in tandem with educational programs she says have 'given folks motivation' to meet their goals. It also gives more people the chance to use vouchers, she said. NYU's Aiken acknowledged HUD's long waitlists make the current system 'a bit of a lottery,' adding: 'You could say that time limits are a way of increasing people's odds in that lottery.' HUD's Section 8 programs have long depended on hundreds of thousands of for-profit and nonprofit small business owners and property managers to accept tenant vouchers. Now, landlords fear a two-year limit could put their contracts for HUD-subsidized housing in limbo. Amid the uncertainty, Denise Muha, executive director of the National Leased Housing Association, said multiple landlord groups have voiced their concerns about HUD's next budget in a letter to congressional leaders. She said landlords generally agree two years is simply not enough time for most low-income tenants to change their fortunes. 'As a practical matter, you're going to increase your turnover, which is a cost,' Muha said. 'Nobody wants to throw out their tenants without cause.' It's always been a significant lift for private landlords to work with HUD subsidies, which involve burdensome paperwork, heavy oversight and maintenance inspections. But the trade-off is a near guarantee of dependable longer-term renters and rental income. If that's compromised, some landlords say they'd pull back from the federal subsidy programs. Brad Suster, who owns 86 Chicago-area units funded by HUD, said accepting subsidies could become risky. 'Would we have the same reliability that we know has traditionally come for countless years from the federal government?' Suster said. 'That's something landlords and owners want to know is there.' The diminishing housing stock available to low-income tenants has been a brewing problem for HUD. Between 2010 and 2020, some 50,000 housing providers left the voucher program, the agency has reported. It's up for debate whether lawmakers will buy into Trump's vision for HUD. This week the U.S. House appropriations committee is taking up HUD's 2026 budget, which so far makes no mention of time limits. HUD's Lovett noted the Senate's budget plans for the agency have not yet been released, and said the administration remains focused on future implementation of time limits. 'HUD will continue to engage with colleagues on the hill to ensure a seamless transition and enforcement of any new time limit,' Lovett said in a statement. Noëlle Porter, the director of government affairs at the National Housing Law Project, said Trump's fight for time limits is far from over, noting that legislative and rule changes could make them a reality. 'It is clearly a stated goal of the administration to impose work requirements and time limits on rental assistance, even though it would be wildly unpopular,' Porter said. Democratic Rep. James Clyburn of South Carolina says there's no evidence time limits would save HUD money. 'This doesn't help families who already are working multiple jobs to become self-sufficient,' Clyburn said at a June hearing. 'Instead, it creates chaos, financial uncertainty and pushes these families into more severe trade-offs.' Time limits could imperil Aaliyah Barnes' longtime dream of graduating college and becoming a nurse, finding a job and a home she can afford. The 28-year-old single mom in Louisville, Kentucky, this year joined Family Scholar House, which provides counseling and support for people pursuing an education — and, to Barnes' relief, housing. Her apartment is paid for by a Section 8 voucher. In March, Barnes moved in and her 3-year-old son, Aarmoni, finally got his own room, where she set up a learning wall. Previously, she had struggled to afford housing on her wages at a call center — and living with her mom, two sisters and their kids in a cramped house was an environment ridden with arguments. The stable future she's building could disappear, though, if she's forced out in two years when her schooling is expected to take three years. 'I'd be so close, but so far away,' Barnes said. Ho and Kramon write for the Associated Press.
7 days ago
- Business
Trump's proposed HUD time limit puts 1.4M of the nation's poorest renters risk
WOODINVILLE, Wash. -- Havalah Hopkins rarely says no to the chain restaurant catering gigs that send her out to Seattle-area events — from church potlucks to office lunches and graduation parties. The delivery fees and tips she earns on top of $18 an hour mean it's better than minimum-wage shift work, even though it's not consistent. It helps her afford the government-subsidized apartment she and her 14-year-old autistic son have lived in for three years, though it's still tough to make ends meet. 'It's a cycle of feeling defeated and depleted, no matter how much energy and effort and tenacity you have towards surviving,' Hopkins said. Still, the 33-year-old single mother is grateful she has stable housing — experts estimate just 1 in 4 low-income households eligible for U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development rental assistance get the benefits. And now Hopkins is at risk of losing her home, as federal officials move to restrict HUD policy. Amid a worsening national affordable housing and homelessness crisis, President Donald Trump's administration is determined to reshape HUD's expansive role providing stable housing for low-income people, which has been at the heart of its mission for generations. The proposed changes include a two-year limit on the federal government's signature rental assistance programs. At a June congressional budget hearing, HUD Secretary Scott Turner argued policies like time limits will fix waste and fraud in public housing and Section 8 voucher programs. 'It's broken and deviated from its original purpose, which is to temporarily help Americans in need,' Turner said. 'HUD assistance is not supposed to be permanent.' But the move to restrict such key subsidies would mark a significant retreat from the scope of HUD's work. Millions of tenants moved in with the promise of subsidized housing for as long as they were poor enough to remain qualified, so time limits would be a seismic shift that could destabilize the most vulnerable households, many unlikely to ever afford today's record-high rents. New research from New York University, obtained exclusively by The Associated Press, found that if families were cut off after two years, 1.4 million households could lose their vouchers and public housing subsidies — largely working families with children. This would lead housing authorities to evict many families, the report said. A broad time limit would cause 'substantial disruption and dislocation,' the it said, noting the policy is largely untested and most of the few housing authorities to voluntarily try it eventually abandoned the pilots. A break from HUD's long-held purpose of helping house the poor could also jeopardize its contracts with private landlords, who say they're already feeling the uncertainty as public housing authorities from Seattle to Atlanta announce they're scaling back in anticipation of federal funding cuts. Critics fear the restriction could derail those working towards self-sufficiency — defeating the goal time-limit supporters hope to achieve. HUD spokesperson Kasey Lovett pushed back on the NYU study. 'There is plenty of data that strongly supports time limits and shows that long-term government assistance without any incentive disincentivizes able-bodied Americans to work,' Lovett said in a statement. She primarily cited statistics suggesting low employment among HUD-subsidized tenants. Hopkins said the policy would likely leave her and her son homeless in an economy that often feels indifferent to working poor people like her. 'A two-year time limit is ridiculous,' she said. 'It's so disrespectful. I think it's dehumanizing — the whole system.' Researchers from the Housing Solutions Lab at New York University's Furman Center analyzed HUD's data over a 10-year period and found about 70% of households who could be affected by a two-year limit had already been living on those subsidies for two or more years. That's based on 2024 estimates and doesn't include elderly and disabled people who wouldn't be subject to time limits. Exempted households make up about half of the roughly 4.9 million households getting rental assistance. In the first study to examine the proposed policy's possible impacts, the NYU researchers found time limits would largely punish families who are working but earning far below their area's median income, which would ultimately shift federal rental assistance away from households with kids. 'Housing assistance is especially impactful for children,' said Claudia Aiken, the study co-author and director of new research partnerships for the Housing Solutions Lab. Their health, education, employment and earnings potential can "change in really meaningful ways if they have stable housing,' she said. It would affect people like Hopkins, whose family was on a years-long waitlist in the expensive region where she grew up. In July 2022, she and her son moved into a two-bedroom public housing unit in Woodinville, Washington. She pays $450 a month in rent — 30% of her household income. A market-rate apartment in the area costs at least $2,000 more, according to the King County Housing Authority, which in June announced it would pause issuing some new vouchers. Hopkins knows she could never afford to live in her home state without rental assistance. It was a relief they could stay as long as they needed. She had been struggling to scrape together hundreds of dollars more a month for her previous trailer home. 'There's no words to put on feeling like your housing is secure,' Hopkins said. 'I feel like I was gasping for air and I'm finally able to breathe.' She credits the housing subsidy for her ability to finally leave an abusive marriage, and still dreams of more — perhaps her own catering business or working as a party decorator. 'We all can't be lawyers and doctors — and two years isn't enough to even become that,' Hopkins said. Since learning of Trump's proposal, Hopkins said she's been haunted by thoughts of shoving her possessions into a van with her son, upending the stability she built for him. The average household in HUD-subsidized housing stays about six years, studies show. HUD funds local public housing projects where nearly 1 million households live and the Section 8 vouchers that about 4 million households use to offset their private rentals. There's been little guidance from HUD on how time-limited housing assistance would be implemented — how it would be enforced, when the clock starts and how the exemptions would be defined. Both Democrats and Republicans have acknowledged the potential for time limits to help curb HUD's notorious waitlists. Hard-liners contend the threat of housing loss will push people to reach self-sufficiency; others see limits, when coupled with support and workforce incentives, as a means to motivate tenants to improve their lives. Yet there are strikingly few successful examples. NYU researchers identified just 17 public housing authorities that have tested time limits. None of the programs were designed for only two years and 11 abandoned the restriction — despite being able to use federal dollars for services to help people achieve self-sufficiency. Several agencies that dropped the limits said tenants still struggled to afford housing after their time was up. 'These policies are complex and difficult to monitor, enforce, and do well,' NYU's Aiken said. The city of Keene, New Hampshire, tried five-year time limits starting in 2001, but terminated the policy before fully enforcing it to avoid kicking out households that would still be 'rent burdened, or potentially homeless,' said Josh Meehan, executive director of Keene Housing. In California, Shawnté Spears of the Housing Authority of San Mateo County said the agency has kept its five-year time limit in tandem with educational programs she says have 'given folks motivation' to meet their goals. It also gives more people the chance to use vouchers, she said. NYU's Aiken acknowledged HUD's long waitlists make the current system 'a bit of a lottery," adding: "You could say that time limits are a way of increasing people's odds in that lottery.' HUD's Section 8 programs have long depended on hundreds of thousands of for-profit and nonprofit small business owners and property managers to accept tenant vouchers. Now, landlords fear a two-year limit could put their contracts for HUD-subsidized housing in limbo. Amid the uncertainty, Denise Muha, executive director of the National Leased Housing Association, said multiple landlord groups have voiced their concerns about HUD's next budget in a letter to congressional leaders. She said landlords generally agree two years is simply not enough time for most low-income tenants to change their fortunes. 'As a practical matter, you're going to increase your turnover, which is a cost," Muha said. 'Nobody wants to throw out their tenants without cause.' It's always been a significant lift for private landlords to work with HUD subsidies, which involve burdensome paperwork, heavy oversight and maintenance inspections. But the trade-off is a near guarantee of dependable longer-term renters and rental income. If that's compromised, some landlords say they'd pull back from the federal subsidy programs. Brad Suster, who owns 86 Chicago-area units funded by HUD, said accepting subsidies could become risky. 'Would we have the same reliability that we know has traditionally come for countless years from the federal government?' Suster said. 'That's something landlords and owners want to know is there." The diminishing housing stock available to low-income tenants has been a brewing problem for HUD. Between 2010 and 2020, some 50,000 housing providers left the voucher program, the agency has reported. It's up for debate whether lawmakers will buy into Trump's vision for HUD. This week the U.S. House appropriations committee is taking up HUD's 2026 budget, which so far makes no mention of time limits. HUD's Lovett noted the Senate's budget plans for the agency have not yet been released, and said the administration remains focused on future implementation of time limits. 'HUD will continue to engage with colleagues on the hill to ensure a seamless transition and enforcement of any new time limit,' Lovett said in a statement. Noëlle Porter, the director of government affairs at the National Housing Law Project, said Trump's fight for time limits is far from over, noting that legislative and rule changes could make them a reality. 'It is clearly a stated goal of the administration to impose work requirements and time limits on rental assistance, even though it would be wildly unpopular,' Porter said. Democratic Rep. James Clyburn of South Carolina says there's no evidence time limits would save HUD money. 'This doesn't help families who already are working multiple jobs to become self-sufficient,' Clyburn said at a June hearing. 'Instead, it creates chaos, financial uncertainty and pushes these families into more severe trade-offs.' Time limits could imperil Aaliyah Barnes' longtime dream of graduating college and becoming a nurse, finding a job and a home she can afford. The 28-year-old single mom in Louisville, Kentucky, this year joined Family Scholar House, which provides counseling and support for people pursuing an education — and, to Barnes' relief, housing. Her apartment is paid for by a Section 8 voucher. In March, Barnes moved in and her 3-year-old son, Aarmoni, finally got his own room, where she set up a learning wall. Previously, she had struggled to afford housing on her wages at a call center — and living with her mom, two sisters and their kids in a cramped house was an environment ridden with arguments. The stable future she's building could disappear, though, if she's forced out in two years when her schooling is expected to take three years. 'I'd be so close, but so far away,' Barnes said. ___ Kramon reported from Atlanta.
