But housing advocates said a shift in priorities could upend decades of progress and torpedo “housing first”: a bipartisan model for solving homelessness that began in New York and relies on Continuum of Care grants. HUD has already signaled how it plans to change course through confusing guidance over the last year. The Supportive Housing Network of New York, an industry group, said it’s a blueprint of what’s to come and in the best case scenario, there would be a 40% cut to existing programs or about $66 million, and 2,800 units losing assistance.
Housing first means providers offer housing without any preconditions, and then provide the necessary support people need to get on their feet, like mental health counseling, health care or addiction and recovery services.
“ Housing is a fundamental ingredient in you building your life,” said Rod Jones, president of Goddard Riverside, a social services organization. He said when people aren’t worried about where they’ll live, they can take care of the other parts of their lives.
Supportive housing providers said with the sweeping policy change, they’re unsure how they’ll afford to keep their doors open next year. They warn it could drive up homelessness rates at a time when homelessness is at a near record high. The Trump administration is simultaneously cutting back other aid programs such as SNAP.
HUD officials said earlier this month the administration wants to “optimize self-sufficiency” and pointed at street homeless numbers as evidence that existing programs weren’t working. In an executive order issued last year, Trump highlighted the 274,000 people who slept on the street in a single night during the last year of the Biden administration and said it was the highest ever recorded.
Housing advocates say the Trump administration’s guidance has been chaotic.
In the last year, HUD has issued new requests for funding to cities and organizations who submit proposals but then rescinded them. The agency threatened to slash two-thirds of programs, prompting lawsuits. Congress intervened and ordered fewer cuts.
“ The past year has absolutely been a roller coaster,” said Rebecca Zangen, chief policy officer with the Supportive Housing Network of New York. She said she estimates about half the tenants are older adults.
“These are folks that are most likely to return to shelter, possibly the streets, and cycle through really traumatic and also expensive systems like shelters, emergency rooms, jails… It would be a tragic and honestly cruel outcome for these folks to lose their housing,” Zangen said.
And housing providers say they’re facing a more immediate threat: there’s no money for their current contracts. That’s leaving many scrounging to pay their bills and limit their reach.
”We’ve stopped signing any long-term leases really because we just don’t know in terms of what’s gonna happen, when we will get paid or if we will get paid from the federal government,” said Kevin Rente, chief strategy and program administrator at Harlem United, a social services organization.
He said the families they serve can begin to move beyond survival when they’re not worried about their housing.
”We have many families that the kids go to school, go to college, families start going back to work … it’s providing a stable home that is extremely, extremely important and necessary.”
Going back in time
Thea Jandzio, senior vice president of behavioral health for Services for the UnderServed, said she’s worried what the cuts could mean to the services they provide that help people sustain themselves. Part of the services that come with supportive housing include escorting people to appointments to get their documents or to the doctor, helping them with benefits and limited nursing services.
She fears the cuts will mean services will revert to how they were 30 years ago, when programs required sobriety or had work requirements.
“It’s like going back in time. That’s how I look at it,” Jandzio said.
She said many of the tenants they serve through the Continuum of Care are older adults, with some in their late 80s. Some have been in the program a year and others for more than 20.
“This is their life and their home,” she said. “And really, for the first time, never had maybe this kind of support and a sense of community.”
Eric Greene, 60, has been living in the Upper West Side in a single room for the last six years in a program run by Goddard Riverside that receives Continuum of Care funds. He said before that he spent 15 years living on the street and in and out of homeless shelters.
“ I used to sleep sitting up. My feet swelled up,” Greene said of his days sleeping on the train. He lives at The Senate, which opened in 1988 and is one of the city’s first supportive housing buildings.
He said his sleep these days is “very fantastic” but he’s still working through trauma of living on the streets, trying to stay sober and thinking about his future.
“Not that I want to be perfect, but I want to make myself better,” he said. “ I’m still going through emotional times.”
Read the original article here.
