California braces for “devastating” federal abbreviations for homeless housing

From Marisa KendallCalmness

This story was originally published by CalmattersS Register about their ballots.

The last blow to a seemingly endless barrage of bad news about California agencies, charged with the fight against homelessness: President Donald Trump’s administration is expected to deeply reduce federal funding for permanent housing.

The news sent counties throughout California in panic. The state obeys losing hundreds of millions of dollars for permanent home, which is the only thing that experts agree with as the most effective way to solve homelessness.

Throughout the country, homeless service providers and local leaders convene emergency meetings to find out how bad the cuts will be and what to do with them. Some are rolling to relocate money around or even reinstall their programs to save hard -won homes. Others have already begun to help smaller people in anticipation of the cuts.

But they agree with one thing: if these abbreviations pass, thousands of the most vulnerable inhabitants of California are likely to be expelled from their subsidized home and can be back on the street.

Will probably turn Recent progress made to eliminate the serious problem of the homelessness of the state.

“I do not know what they think will happen to all these people,” says Merin Pete, chairman of the continuum of the care of Stanislav County, who runs the federal funds for the homelessness of the county. “We’ll just turn them and they’ll just disappear? I have no idea, but it looks pretty inhuman.”

Its district has 17 permanent residential projects, funded with money at risk of federal cuts.

Already breed from the upcoming abbreviations For homeless funding, California’s homelessness agencies have been federal attachment Months, without knowing exactly what to expect. Now some of these abbreviations have fallen into a more focus. The Trump Administration intends to redirect a significant portion of money away from the permanent housing and in the temporary home – while adding requirements for people to qualify for this temporary assistance, according to Reporting by PoliticoWho cites internal HUD documents and interviews with anonymous HUD employees.

If this happens, only 30% of the federal homelessness funds will be available for permanent housing – compared to the current percentage of 87%. Throughout the country, this means that money available for permanent housing will shrink from $ 3.3 billion to about $ 1.1 billion, Politico reported.

This would be a major change of strategy. For years, the Department of Housing and Urban Development has given priority to the permanent housing over temporary housing and shelter. The permanent home is intended to end one’s homelessness for good, while temporary home and shelter is a solution to help the tape: it takes people out of the street, but only for a limited time.

“The loss of such a permanent home will have an impact for the next generations.”

Gita O’Neill, Temporary Executive Director, Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority

When Calfatters asked the Agency to comment on the reported abbreviations of funding, in which he answered with an automatically generated email: “The radical left closed the government. As a result

The Federal Government is expected to issue a “Notice of Financing Opportunities” this fall for its continuous service program, the main source of federal financing of homelessness, exposing how much money is available, what it can be used and what rules are being implemented. It is there that Feders are expected to inform the official notice of the constant cuts of the housing.

Los Angeles County, which has the largest population of homeless in California, has $ 217 million. More than 80% of this go to maintain people in permanent housing, said Jessica Reed, an associate director of Continuum of Care Planning for the Los Angeles homeless service services. If the projected cuts pass, more than 8,000 units of housing will be at risk, she said.

It would be “absolutely devastating,” Reed said.

People living in subsidized permanent homes tend to be among the most vulnerable in California, including those who have chronic disabilities and were homeless for years before moving indoors. Many live on scarce disability benefits. If their housing subsidies are dry, there is no way they can pay their rent, Reed said.

These tenants also often have criminal files, bad credit and the history of expulsion – which makes them almost impossible for them to compete for homes in the open market, even if they can afford to rent, Pete said.

The last continuum for the distribution of care in Santa Cruz County was about $ 7.7 million – of which about 82% are for a permanent home, said Robert Ratner, director of healthcare housing for the county. About 290 people live in these units.

If the cost cap comes into force, Santa Cruz County is likely to try to displace some state money to cover housing that is no longer eligible for federal funds, Ratner said.

“In the end, we will have to close most of these programs because there is not enough money from the state,” he said. “There is no way mathematics will work.”

In order to prepare, Santa Cruz County has already begun to wind up some services.

“We are helping much less people,” Ratner said.

Usually, Santa Cruz County helps between 40 and 60 households to move from homelessness every month. If the constant abbreviations of the housing come into force, Ratner expects it to fall by three quarters.

In order to make things worse when they award stray grants, federals plan to deduct points for organizations that have used “racial preferences” or recognized transgender people, according to Politico. Trump’s administration has already tried to impose such restrictions on other stray homeless homeless, which prompts numerous lawsuitsS

Ratner worries that the new rules may mean that Santa Cruz County is not entitled to money.

Other counties make such terrible forecasts.

Santa Clara County estimates that at least 1000 households would be at risk of homelessness if the financing of federals permanently dwelling at 30%, said Catherine Kaminski, director of the District Housing Service.

Sacramento County, which dedicated about 86% of its $ 40 million to the federal continuum to financing permanent housing in 2024, is worried that the cuts can displace residents, slow housing and force service providers to release staff.

The worst part is that this change of funding signals that the federal administration is turning its back on the long-standing belief that the permanent housing is deciding homelessness, said Gita O’Neal, temporarily acting executive director of the Los Angeles homeless service authority. And the federals do this change suddenly, not giving time to service providers to have no time to end their programs.

“Which will be devastating throughout the country, no matter where you are,” O’Neal said. “The loss of such a permanent home will influence next generations.”

This article was Originally Published on CalMatters and was reissued under Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Noderivatives License.