Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Secretary Ben Carson retracts plan to raise rents on low-income housing after revealing new federal money will be used to alleviate budgetary issues.

During a recent speaking engagement at the Bipartisan Policy Center, Carson said additional funding from Congress will stop any plan to raise rents by triple for now, The Hill reports.

"The reason we had to consider raising rents at all is because we were dealing with a $41 billion budget," Carson said. "And in order to be able to keep from raising rents on the elderly and the disabled, and in order to not displace people who are already being taken care of, that was necessary."

Carson announced the plan in April to increase the rent of some of the poorest families in the nation from $50 to $150. HUD justified the plan by claiming those living in HUD housing could become self-sufficient if the rent was to increase.

There will be "perverse incentives, including discouraging these families from earning more income and becoming self-sufficient."

“I saw public housing as an option to get on my feet, to pay 30 percent of my income and get myself out of debt and eventually become a homeowner,” South Carolina resident Ebony Morris told The Associated Press. Her monthly rent would jump from $403 to $600 under the new proposal.

“But this would put us in a homeless state,” she added.

Data from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities and the Associated Press shows tenants would have to pay roughly 20 percent more each year for rent under the plan. And some would end up homeless because they could not make ends meet. With the 4 million HUD households, half would be affected immediately while the other would experience issues after about six years.

"Now that the budget has been changed, the necessity for doing that is not urgent," Carson said.

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