The Trump administration is renewing its push to change the way it funds homeless shelters and housing in California and other states, and several agencies say it could disrupt their services.
It tried last year to move federal homelessness funds away from permanent housing and into temporary housing that requires sobriety. That move, which goes against the existing “housing first” policy favoring a no-strings-attached approach to housing, was blocked by a federal judge.
Now, federal housing officials are trying again. Once again, the effort is facing pushback.
This week, a group that includes the National Alliance to End Homelessness and Santa Clara County filed a challenge in Rhode Island’s federal court to the Housing and Urban Development Department’s latest funding guidelines.
“The Trump administration’s callous decision to take a second bite at dismantling one of our nation’s most important homelessness prevention programs after a federal court already blocked the administration’s first attempt shows a complete disregard for the people who depend on this funding to keep a roof over their heads,” Santa Clara County Counsel Tony LoPresti said in a news release.
More than $4 billion in federal funding is at stake. The National Alliance to End Homelessness estimates the proposed changes could cost California nearly $238 million for permanent housing, and threaten to put nearly 15,000 Californians back on the street.
“The ‘housing first’ experiment failed Americans by warehousing the vulnerable without results. This ideology promised to end homelessness. Instead, billions of taxpayer dollars were spent while homelessness increased to record levels,” HUD Secretary Scott Turner said in a news release earlier this month.
Marisa Kendall is a reporter with CalMatters.
Housing first is a failed policy that has done absolutely nothing to reduce homelessness while costing California’s billions of dollars. Believing we must provide free private housing to anyone and not ask anything of them is beyond comprehension.
Of course the NGOs who’s entire existing rely on the homeless industrial complex will fight to keep their paychecks flowing.
We need change, even if the administration must force it on us. The state, county and city have proven they have no real solutions but to continue to waste massive amounts of taxpayer resources.
The reason we always have more unhoused people is that more people are being priced out of their housing, losing their housing because they missed a paycheck or had an emergency expense, or the landlord takes their housing off the market and they can’t afford something else.
That’s a completely separate issue than whether or not Housing First providers are doing a good job with wraparound services. Under HUD policies, Housing First tenants are supposed to be held to the same responsibilities as other tenants, but they aren’t getting the support they need to do that.
I think the County needs to audit the local providers and enforce the terms of their contracts. The Office of Supportive Housing definitely doesn’t care what happens once someone is housed, because that would mean doing actual work following up on thousands of clients. It’s fraud by the agencies to sign a contract to provide (for example) a 24/7 hotline for clients in crisis but when they call it, the “hotline” is a voicemail with a message saying their call will be returned the following business day. Being able to leave a voicemail when you’re in crisis isn’t a 24/7 crisis hotline. It’s a regular business voicemail. Likewise, social workers would show up unannounced to visit my Housing First neighbors without an appointment and mark them as “refused services” if they were out doing errands or AT WORK. They also didn’t care about confidentiality because the reason I knew all this was that they’d go around talking to random tenants asking about their clients’ personal business.
“Threaten to put nearly 15,000 Californians back on the street.”
So what you are saying is we are paying drug addicts to stay drug addicts.