A coalition of state attorneys general is suing the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) over drastic changes to its marquee grant program that effectively defund housing services for vulnerable groups, including people who use drugs. The Continuum of Care (CoC) Program, which provides billions of dollars in funding for housing services each year, has been reshaped to align with President Donald Trump’s July executive order targeting people who are street-homeless.
The complaint was filed November 25 in the federal District of Rhode Island, and represents attorneys general for 18 states and the District of Columbia, as well as the governors of Kentucky and Pennsylvania.
Trump’s executive order expanded civil commitment and directed HUD to abandon its “Housing First” approach—meaning it should only fund programs that require abstinence or otherwise impose barriers that keep vulnerable people out of stable housing. The department has since begun to do that, making a series of changes that ultimately prompted the new legal complaint. The plaintiffs allege that the changes “essentially guarantee that tens of thousands of formerly homeless individuals and families will be evicted back into homelessness.”
Around 90 percent of CoC funds are allocated for permanent housing, in accordance with the Housing First model. But earlier in November CoC cut that down to 30 percent, as well as adding “Geographic Discrimination Conditions” to make grants more competitive for applicants in jurisdictions that aren’t openly hostile to unhoused residents. CoC also prohibited funding for housing dedicated to or inclusive of transgender residents, or for any housing services that don’t support the myth of a gender binary.
CoC evaluates applications using a points system, which the “Geographic Discrimination Conditions” impact substantially. Points are awarded to applicants located in jurisdictions that enforce bans on public drug use and public camping. Enforcement of civil commitment and surveillance of residents on sex offender registries are weighted in the selection process as well.
The complaint alleges that the gender-based criteria are unlawful. CoC is subject to an “Equal Access” regulation that requires housing and other services be made available to residents according to their gender identity. The regulation is currently still in effect.
Trans and gender-diverse people, people who use drugs and people on sex offender registries are already systemically disenfranchised from housing.
“Congress designed this program in recognition that homelessness is a crisis that requires immediate stabilization and continuing support to reverse,” stated Washington Attorney General Nick Brown, one of the three AG leading the coalition. “These changes are designed to trap people in poverty and then punish them for being poor.”
Among the other people quoted in Brown’s announcement was a Washington resident who described how after leaving a domestic violence situation they spent the next five years moving between shelters, cars and other forms of homelessness.
“My son spent his early childhood in that reality while I tried to navigate his disabilities and a maze of systems that made us constantly prove we deserved help,” they stated. “Getting housing was a huge relief, but functioning didn’t come back overnight. It took more than a year before I could manage daily routines or feel safe again. That’s why wraparound services matter—they are the bridge between ‘not dying’ and actually living.”
Four days before the complaint was filed, the same federal district court issued a permanent injunction barring the Trump administration from effectively shuttering the Institute of Museum and Library Services, the Minority Business Development Agency Case, the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service and the United States Interagency Council on Homelessness. All four agencies were targeted for defunding under a March executive order, “Continuing the Reduction of the Federal Bureaucracy.”
Top image (cropped) via City of Tucson. Inset graphic via United States Congress.
