The Trump administration on Monday abruptly withdrew a controversial policy aimed at reshaping a multi-billion-dollar anti-homelessness grant program run by the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), as the proposed changes drew lawsuits from over a dozen states and localities as well as homeless-serving organizations.
In a court filing Monday afternoon, officials wrote they withdrew guidance documents pertaining to the new policy “in order to assess the issues raised by Plaintiffs in their suits and to fashion a revised [plan].” A new notice on the program’s website says the agency “still intends to exercise this discretion and make changes” to the program, and that officials expect to share the updated policy “well in advance of the deadline for obligation of available Fiscal Year 2025 funds.”
As Scripps News reported in November, Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Scott Turner is pushing a significant overhaul of the Continuum of Care program, which provides government grants to localities and aid organizations that combat homelessness via housing support, mental health and job training services.
Among the proposed changes to the nearly $4 billion program was a significantly lowered cap on how much funding could go towards long-term housing support; whereas previous funding years limited spending on long-term housing programs to 90% of grant receipts, Turner’s changes limited it to just 30%.
“Prior to us getting here in the Biden administration, there were no strings attached to almost $4 billion of taxpayer funding,” Turner argued in an interview with Scripps News last month. “There was no accountability, and so we have to change that.”
In a statement to Scripps News Monday evening, a HUD spokesperson said the agency "fully stands by the fundamental reforms" to the program and will "reissue [the guidance document] as quickly as possible with technical corrections."
"The Department remains fully committed to make long overdue reforms to its homelessness assistance programs," the spokesperson added.
EARLIER THIS YEAR | Trump admin announces billion-dollar changes to a program that helps people out of homelessness
Housing advocates and groups that work to address homelessness, meanwhile, have spoken out forcefully against the proposed changes.
The proposed changes represent “a reckless and illegal leap backwards for homeless response in the United States,” Ann Oliva, CEO of the National Alliance to End Homelessness, said in a statement. “There is no doubt that it will cause homelessness to rise across this nation.”
The proposed changes are “a destructive departure from decades of homelessness policy and will put an estimated 170,000 people into homelessness,” echoed Renee M. Willis, president and CEO of the National Low Income Housing Coalition. “These actions will destabilize communities across the country.”
Willis’ and Oliva’s groups were among the coalition of local governments and nonprofits that sued to try to block the policy in early December, following over a dozen, predominately Democratically-led states that filed a separate lawsuit in late November.
“HUD has adopted new policies that threaten to cancel thousands of existing projects, require providers to fundamentally reshape their programs on an impossible timeline, and essentially guarantee that tens of thousands of formerly homeless individuals and families will be evicted back into homelessness,” the states allege in their complaint. “HUD is now holding these funds and the people they help hostage.
Asked about the organizations’ criticisms and officials’ lawsuits at the time, a HUD spokesperson declined to comment, pointing Scripps News to Turner’s public remarks.
During a previously-scheduled hearing in the states’ lawsuit on Monday afternoon, attorneys on both sides sparred about the proposed changes, and well as the recent withdrawal of the policy documents.
The plaintiffs contend that withdrawing the policy as the Trump administration did violates the law, similar to their argument that the way they announced it was unlawful. They signaled that they intend to move forward with their challenge to the policy on both substantive and procedural grounds.
Presiding Judge Mary S. McElroy ordered the government to produce information about how and why the policy was rescinded by Dec. 15, overturning the Justice Department’s requests for a delay until the new year, and scheduled a follow-up hearing for the 19th.
