Trump Budget Spares Subsidy That Benefits Him As Starrett City Owner, But Slashes HUD Funds: Report

EAST NEW YORK — A proposed Trump administration budget would slash federal homeless aid funding but keep a private landlord subsidy that directly benefits the president, a part-owner of the largest subsidized housing complex in the United States, the Washington Post reported Wednesday.

Trump owns a four percent stake in Starrett City — the 46-building complex on Pennsylvania Avenue on the edge of East New York — which earned the president around $5 million between January 2016 and April 15, 2017, the Washington Post reported.

Trump once called his stake, “One of the best investments I ever made,” but failed to mention he had inherited it from his father, Fred Trump, when he died, the Post reported.

The complex is part of the “project-based rental assistance program,” which asks Starrett City’s 15,000 tenants to pay 30 percent of their income directly to landlords. The federal government makes up the difference.

The 150-acre complex, home to almost 3,500 subsidized apartments, has earned its owners more than $490 million in rent subsidies since May 2013, according to the Washington Post.

This is the program Trump’s proposed budget spared — one of only a few Housing and Urban Development programs not to face enormous funding cuts, the Washington Post reported.

The Trump budget calls for a $1.8 billion cut to public housing and a $1 billion drop in tenants’ housing vouchers, a Center on Budget and Policy Priorities spokesman told the Washington Post.

Neither the White House nor the Trump Organization provided the Washington Post with a comment.

Starrett City recently made headlines for the poor HUD inspection scores the complex has garnered for maintenance problems — including a major leak that shut down its air conditioning system just as summer hit, The Real Deal reported.

The next sweep of inspections are slated for this summer and will be overseen by Ben Carson, a Trump appointee.

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