Federal funding freeze could reverse Lane County progress on homelessness

Presenter: Describing the personal toll of federal funding freezes, at the Lived Experience Advisory Group (LEAGUE) Feb. 7 and the city’s Homelessness and Poverty Work Group March 4, Richard Self:

Richard Self (LEAGUE, Feb. 7, 2025): Well, with the new edict on stopping all funding, that presents a problem for me and for a whole bunch of other people. My income is Social Security, my housing is subsidized.

Richard Self (HAPWG, March 4, 2025): It takes a lot out of me. I can’t speak for anybody else, but it takes a lot out of me just watching this happen. And, you know, never have I been affected by an administration in so personal of ways. It’s always hanging over your head. You don’t know. Right now, it’s all good. I got everything I’m supposed to get, so far so good. But you never know when the plug will get pulled or why or anything.

[00:01:03] Richard Self (LEAGUE, Feb. 7, 2025): I don’t know how long I could maintain it if my income was cut off, but I’m preparing myself as much as possible without packing everything for the worst-case scenario, just in case, you know, that all happens at least I’m preparing mentally so…

[00:01:23] In case we are overwhelmed here in Lane County with additional thousands of new homeless people, you would think that there should be at least some talks of a preliminary plan. And I would suggest if the county is not doing that, that they should.

[00:01:41] Presenter: Lane County commissioners asked about that worst-case scenario Tuesday, as two Lane County grants totaling $26 million were frozen. On March 18, after learning about the freeze on a $6 million grant from Housing and Urban Development (HUD), Commissioner Laurie Trieger:

[00:02:00] Laurie Trieger (Lane County, commissioner): I’m bringing this up just to register my great concern about the future of our ability to actually operate and deliver services as a county under this current federal administration.

[00:02:11] This is not the first, and it’s not the smallest at, what is it, $6 million grant that’s been frozen that we’ve been promised. This is not pending approval. These are approved funds that this current administration is refusing to disburse per the promises that have been made.

[00:02:28] So I’m greatly concerned and I think it would be helpful to hear a little bit more about what the impacts of these funds not coming to Lane County as they were promised could look like.

[00:02:42] Presenter: Lane County Human Services Division Manager Kate Budd:

[00:02:45] Kate Budd (Lane County Human Services Division, manager): In short, it would very much lead to folks who are in stable housing today, who had moved from an unhoused situation or living in emergency shelter into permanent housing, having to move out due to rent and tenancy supports not being available. And so, it certainly would be a worst-case scenario.

[00:03:10] Presenter: Commissioner Trieger:

[00:03:12] Laurie Trieger (Lane County, commissioner): And if I may, have we been given any indication of when we might have any clarity from HUD on these funds?

[00:03:19] Kate Budd: Not at this point.

[00:03:20] Laurie Trieger (Lane County, commissioner): And so, do we have subcontractors that are awaiting these dollars? I mean, we’re sort of passing these dollars through, they’re not directly county operating dollars exclusively.

[00:03:29] So, what will happen to these organizations that are relying on these funds? They don’t have an alternate source that they can spend in the meantime while we wait for whatever random decisions based on nothing are being made at the federal level. Do you have any sense of where folks are in delivering services?

[00:03:48] Presenter: Kate Budd:

[00:03:49] Kate Budd: So at this point we just have one contract that is late in being approved. However, if there continues to be no movement at the HUD level, then we would have more and more agencies who wouldn’t be able to bill for the costs that they’re accruing and then those very difficult decisions would have to come.

[00:04:10] We’re fortunate in that there are multiple funding sources that are woven together to support these programs. However, those HUD funds are incredibly important in sustaining the programs for the long term.

[00:04:24] Laurie Trieger (Lane County, commissioner): Thank you. And were we asked to provide any information to help support the release of these approved funds? Or was it just, they’re frozen with zero communication otherwise?

[00:04:35] Kate Budd:  We haven’t been asked for additional information at this point.

[00:04:39] Presenter: A $20 million grant from the Environmental Protection Agency has also been frozen. Later in the March 18 meeting, Lane County Policy Director Stephen Adams:

[00:04:50] Stephen Adams (Lane County, policy director): I wanted to update you on the EPA grant for resilience hubs…to indicate the guidance that we provided to our subgrantees last week: We are under review at the federal level. We do not know what the status of that already-approved grant and executed grant instrument is at this time, and we communicated to our subgrantees that we did not want them to make large financial decisions until such time as we had greater clarity. So we have communicated that.

[00:05:16] The staff continue to work at the kind of planning stage, the planning level of engagement, with every hope that this already-executed grant will be able to move through. This is $19.5 million dollars for six resilience hubs across Lane County.

[00:05:35] So that is the update on that particular grant. We continue to monitor executive orders. We’re watching the thicket of litigation as well, really working in concert with County Counsel to really understand specifically the impact of the transition on county operation on a regular basis. So we continue to meet twice weekly to understand what that looks like on our operations.

[00:05:59] Presenter: Commissioner Trieger:

[00:06:01] Laurie Trieger (Lane County, commissioner): These are funds that were approved by the 118th Congress but this current administration has put a freeze on, is the language we’re using. In what format did we receive notice of this freeze?

[00:06:13] Presenter: Policy Director Stephen Adams:

[00:06:15] Stephen Adams (Lane County, policy director): We have not received any official communication. We are monitoring the federal portal that we use to draw funds down. And so it is currently inoperable, and our grant is indicated as being suspended within that portal.

[00:06:30] So it is an active grant. It should be operable at this time, and we do not have anything other than staff acknowledgment that that issue has been noted, and they will tell us when they can tell us something.

[00:06:43] Presenter: Commissioner Trieger:

[00:06:44] Laurie Trieger (Lane County, commissioner): So the Health and Human Services Commission, which I serve on with Commissioner Buch, which is the joint city of Eugene, Springfield, and Lane County board that oversees the collective funds that those three entities contribute to, to fund some of the most critical human service programs countywide, but with quite a lot of them serving folks in Eugene.

[00:07:06] And so we got the news that Kate Budd delivered here this morning about this nearly $6 million HUD Continuum of Care grant now being potentially reneged on, and also with the City of Eugene’s budget challenges, what their ability will be to continue to contribute to that fund and at what level.

[00:07:25] So we’re, we’re sort of in for it. And this is going to mean the need is going to increase in the community. These federal layoffs… we’re going to have more people in Lane County who are unemployed and needing services, and the funds for those services are being withheld and/or decreasing.

[00:07:41] So we’re in for a time.

[00:07:44] Presenter: A worst-case scenario begins to unfold in Lane County, as commissioners hear Tuesday that $26 million in federal funding has been frozen.