Appeals court upholds block on HUD homelessness overhaul : NPR

Tents are lined up on Skid Row on Thursday, July 25, 2024, in Los Angeles.

Jae C. Hong/AP

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Jae C. Hong/AP

A federal appeals court Wednesday evening rejected pressure from the Trump administration to impose new conditions on homeless funding, saying their implementation “would be immediately destabilizing and disastrous”. The ruling upheld a lower court’s preliminary injunction, the last reprimand in a major change that advocates say would push 170,000 people living in federally subsidized housing into homelessness. This would include many disabled, elderly and veterans.

The Ministry of Housing and Urban Development wishes significantly reduce money for permanent housing and moving him to transitional programs that require sobriety, mental health treatment and other conditions. HUD Secretary Scott Turner said it would push people toward self-sufficiency. The agency did not say whether it would appeal the decision, but said in a statement that it “remains committed to reforming the misguided ‘housing first’ approach that for years has funded the selfish homeless industrial complex, rewarded activists, and ignored solutions.”

The change in how nearly $4 billion a year is spent would upend two decades of bipartisan federal policy, an approach that the appeals court ruling said “has proven effective.”

The mere threat of losing funds as this case unfolds has already caused “serious actual harm,” the ruling notes. Citing testimony from the plaintiffs, he said several local homeless service providers had stopped accepting new clients and “stopped referring new clients to certain permanent housing programs…because of the planned projects.” [funding] cuts.”

A coalition of nonprofit homeless advocacy groups, local governments and mostly Democratic-led states filed suit, arguing that the last-minute overhaul announced last fall was illegal.

“We are relieved,” the coalition said in a statement, and “remain committed to protecting proven solutions to homelessness.”