Local efforts to combat homelessness had been brought under a cloud of uncertainty by proposed changes to a major federal grant program.
But following a series of challenges from states’ attorney generals’ offices and national homelessness abatement leaders, federal housing officials now look to be distancing themselves from the proposed changes, which local leaders say represented a radical change to how the U.S. combats homelessness.
Leaders at Housing Forward, the nonprofit agency responsible for supporting people experiencing housing instability and chronic homelessness in Cook County’s western suburbs, said they were shocked earlier this year by news that the Trump administration’s Department of Housing and Urban Development was looking to impose new restrictions on how local organizations could spend federal money associated with the agency’s Continuum of Care grant program. The proposed restrictions included putting a cap on how much organizations could spend on permanent housing programs and enforcing new requirements on program beneficiaries, according to Housing Forward Executive Director Lynda Schueler.
Permanent housing support programs are among the core strategies championed by homelessness experts for getting people into stable housing. The proposed changes would’ve only allowed Housing Forward to spend 30% of its grant money on permanent housing units, as the government looked to force organizations to shift their spending to temporary programs, Schueler said.
“Permanent supportive housing is a model that has been adopted by HUD more than a decade ago as a way for the nation to end homelessness for highly vulnerable, high need individuals that require long term subsidies for housing because of their disability, because they are typically on a fixed income, of say, Social Security benefits or VA benefits, or in some cases, have no income at all,” Schueler said. “So in order for providers like us to help reduce unsheltered homelessness, HUD provides this level of funding for these rental subsidies.”
Schueler said most of the subsidized rental units that the group provides to its clients are paid for by federal funding. Housing Forward served more than 2,500 individuals and families last year across 26 suburban communities including Oak Park, Maywood, Forest Park, Brookfield. Berwyn and Cicero.
Among the rental assistance programs the organization administers, several are dedicated to providing stable housing and wraparound services to domestic violence survivors, people with severe mental health issues and young adults exiting the foster care system.
The federal grant program changes would fundamentally change how the organization works to combat homelessness, particularly among people living with long-term disabilities, Schueler said.
“This is a really hard pill to swallow right now, so it’s not just a loss of funding. It’s also a loss of permanent supportive housing as our answer and as a demonstrated and proven solution to end homelessness,” Schueler said.
More than 25% of Housing Forward’s budget is made up by funding coming directly from HUD, including seven permanent supportive housing contracts Housing Forward has with the agency that supports more than 300 long-term subsidized units for people with disabilities experiencing chronic homelessness, Schueler said.
Congress created the Continuum of Care program in 1987 to provide resources for states, local governments and nonprofits to deliver support services to homeless people, with a focus on veterans, families, and people with disabilities, according to Reuters.
The program has long been based on the “housing first” approach to combating homelessness, which puts people into permanent housing without preconditions such as sobriety and employment, Schueler said. The changes would ultimately put more people on the streets across the United States and create extra burdens for local health systems, Schueler said.
The proposed changes to the grant program, which were first introduced in late September, were met with a lawsuit filed by attorney general’s offices in 20 states, including Illinois, and another from the National Alliance to End Homelessness and Democracy Forward. The legal challenges argued that the program changes could drive some 170,000 Americans into homelessness.
In a Monday court filing, HUD leaders said that they were planning to abandon the proposed changes and new restrictions to the Continuum of Care grant program. The move came after U.S. District Judge Mary McElroy told agency leaders they had created “intentional chaos,” in its handling of the grant program, according to Reuters.
Uncertainty around the future of federal funding has lingered since Trump took office this year, with HUD’s Chicago office seeing a large cut in personnel shortly after the president took office, Schueler said.
