Courts block Trump administration from abandoning Housing First, for now

Presenter The courts blocked the Trump administration from immediately abandoning a policy of Housing First. Late last year, HUD issued new policy priorities that put 180 units of local permanent housing at risk. On Jan. 8, Lane County’s Poverty and Homelessness Board breathed a sigh of relief. Amanda Borta:

Amanda Borta (Lane County, senior program services coordinator, Continuum of Care) You’ll remember back in November, HUD released that FY25 Notice Of Funding Opportunity, or NOFO. Since then, you’ll remember, two lawsuits separately were filed, one by a coalition of states and one by National Alliance to End Homelessness, along with other organizations. And since that time, the process for the NOFO has sort of been lying within the courts dealing with those lawsuits. and so things have kind of been fluctuating quickly based on that. 

So after those lawsuits had rescinded, you’ll remember the first NOFO, in early December. and then HUD released a revised one on Dec. 19. And that happened just at the same time, that same day was a hearing for those lawsuits. And just following that, the judge has issued a preliminary injunction, which essentially is barring HUD from enforcing any of the FY24 NOFOs, either the previous one or the one they currently have posted. 

When we say that a preliminary injunction was granted, these things are not necessarily being sent out or posted by HUD at this point. We are literally following this within the court dockets to find out this information, largely. 

And so the FY25 NOFO, essentially, and the challenge conditions in it are just at this point halted by a court order: They cannot move forward on it, cannot implement it, cannot execute that NOFO. 

And so while that is happening, the injunction basically states that they have to maintain the status quo that existed under the previously-posted NOFO for FY24-25. So that was the one from last year that was supposed to be for two years. 

And they’ve indicated that HUD essentially has to take all steps necessary to process eligible renewals for FY25 funding through that NOFO, at this point. 

It did not indicate that they have to obligate or award funds at this point. They simply need to open a process for us to apply for renewal through that NOFO. And they also had to sort of file a report with the court, kind of outlining the steps that they’re going to take to do that and what the timeline is, and must inform us within 14 days. 

And so that timeline essentially was Jan. 6, and so, by Jan. 6, they were going to open the competition again and provide a deadline and instructions for applying for renewal. They were clear that they reserved the right to implement a new NOFO if a court order does not prohibit them from doing so, and then they indicated a potential deadline of Feb. 19 in that implementation plan that they filed with the court.

So it’s important to note that a motion was filed for an extension. And so we’re expecting by today that HUD will release some information to recipients about what they need to do to apply for renewal, what those steps are, and what the deadline is. So all of this is tentative until they send out something official.

They did indicate we will have to do a ranking and that they anticipate and expect to review awards by May of 2026. So that was still somewhat with the timeline we were expecting before. 

So as of now, based on that information, we will plan to conduct a competition to renew projects, renewal projects based on that previous NOFO. So we’re going back and relooking at that one. They may end up—there’s obviously going to be some changes. The deadlines within that NOFO are no longer accurate. Things like that might be changed when they repost it. But we expect that it, by and large, will be the same contentwise. 

And so any of the CoC YHDP youth homelessness demonstration projects awarded in FY24 would be eligible for renewal under the FY25 grant period.

So we will work, obviously, with the CoC (Continuum of Care) Committee to determine any projects that need to be reallocated, but we don’t anticipate sort of the big reallocation that happened with that FY25 NOFO, as that was really a result of that 30% cap on permanent housing, which is not in the FY24-25 one.  So we may have some movement of grants, but not sort of what we had initially planned on. 

So the new projects through reallocation, I don’t—there’s not an indication that there would be, like, additional bonus new money. It’s all through renewal money. But those project types would be permanent supportive housing, rapid rehousing, joint transitional rehousing and supportive services for coordinated entry. 

So you’ll note that transitional housing, supportive services only, and SSO outreach, which are the project types that we had put out in a request for proposals for a selection process,  those are not eligible categories under that previous notice. Those were new eligible categories under the FY25 NOFO that’s no longer enforceable.

So that sort of selection process at this point is just on hold, we can’t move forward with submitting those applications to HUD through this process. So those would just kind of hang out there for now. If something happens and HUD releases a FY25 NOFO after the court order is lifted or something like that, we could potentially use those. But right now those are just sort of there. 

If we’re implementing renewals through that NOFO, we do expect that the CoC Committee will meet to finalize our renewal scoring. That’s sort of our evaluation, intent-to-renew process. We already completed that, but we’ll just have to revisit it, make sure that still meets what we need for this particular NOFO for the purposes of ranking, and they will discuss if there are any reallocations to be made, and obviously complete the final ranking that is likely to be required.

So the PHB will need to convene—if the deadline remains as Feb. 19, we’ll likely need to convene outside of our normal schedule, because I think we would need that approval prior to that scheduled date in February to approve that final ranking and final submission.

Presenter Human Services Division Manager Kate Budd:

Kate Budd (Lane County, Human Services Division, manager)  Amanda, that was incredible. Thank you. It’s just amazing how much has happened in the last couple of months. 

And what I want to hit home is that today, we are in the best possible scenario that we could be in, in order to sustain our CoC programs that were funded through the last NOFO. And that things could still fall apart.

But at this point, the programs that were funded—permanent supportive housing, rapid rehousing—have an opportunity to receive funding for another year, is the way the courts have set this up again. 

And we need to potentially rank our existing projects again, as you mentioned, Amanda. And so that’s just basically, you know, how many are going to be in Tier 1, which would be guaranteed funding, and then how many would be in Tier 2, which would be funded based on our score from last year’s application. 

And so there are still some X factors that we deal with and our existing programs deal with but again, at this point in time, we’re in our best-case scenario for the next year.

PHB member Is that a smile I see on your face?

Kate Budd It’s very cautious. (laughter).

Amanda Borta  This is in our favor. This is good news that we potentially can continue funding for a year. And I believe Tier 1 in the last one was 90% (automatically renewed). So the overall majority of projects would essentially be secure, for most CoCs. And so that’s good news. 

And again, we still don’t know. There’s not a final court decision. Any number of things could change that in the next several weeks. So as of today, yes, we’re very cautiously optimistic about this, as of now. 

We do anticipate, you know, there will be a big reallocation likely in the future. There will be reductions in permanent housing. It just remains to be seen to what extent. But we should sort of keep that in mind and keep planning for that and expecting that, so that we’re not having to do that in a scramble, like we were going to have to.

It really just gives us more time right now to consider and implement changes, and expect those a little bit more in advance than we were. And so I think now we can maybe take more time to revisit what we’ve already decided, make sure that’s what’s best, do some more planning around our projects and what we really want to hold on to, what can shift.

Because we know that that 30% cap is probably going to be in there, most likely, and that they have emphasized, they absolutely want this to be more competitive. And so Tier 1 is not likely to be more than 30%. So we know those things are probably still true. And that still puts most of our funding at risk going forward. 

And so, I’m just glad we now have sort of more time to think through that, make sure we’re making the right decisions, and maybe assess our projects more thoroughly than we had a chance to do before, making sure we have the best projects to also replace anything that we’re losing and make sure we are maintaining the best number of units that we can. 

So we welcome everyone who wants to help contribute to those conversations. And certainly, once we at least figure out what’s happening with this, I don’t think we’re going to necessarily wait for the next one to come out starting in February. We’re going to already start having those conversations about what needs to happen next, I think.

Speaker Lane County gets more time to plan its transition before the Trump administration dramatically alters the way it funds housing.