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Wu speaks out as Boston joins lawsuit against Trump administration over homelessness support
More than 1,100 Bostonians could become homeless this winter due to new funding requirements, Mayor Michelle Wu said.
The Wu administration joined a national lawsuit this week against the federal government, arguing that funding cuts from the the Department of Housing and Urban Development are threatening to push people towards homelessness during the coldest months of the year.
The legal action comes as the Trump administration is making major changes to HUD’s Continuum of Care Program, which sends money to local entities working to end homelessness. HUD Secretary Scott Turner has said that the CoC program operated as a “Biden-era slush fund that fueled the homelessness crisis,” unfairly disadvantaged faith-based providers, and “incentivized never-ending government dependency.”
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Under Turner’s leadership, HUD is pivoting away from permanent housing assistance. Instead, resources are being funneled into transitional housing services. HUD announced new funding requirements last month.
Now, Boston will have to eliminate $29 million in permanent supportive housing projects and replace them with new projects that offer temporary housing or services only, according to a release from the Wu administration. Boston was awarded about $48 million in CoC grants this year, which officials say supported 19 nonprofit groups and more than 2,000 formerly homeless households.
Mayor Michelle Wu said that the CoC changes could leave more than 1,100 Boston residents homeless.
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“Permanent supportive housing has been a key to tackling homelessness and keeping Bostonians stable and safe in our community,” she said in a statement. “It’s thanks to the funding from the Continuum of Care program and our nearly 20 partner organizations that we have been able to support so many adults and children, individuals with substance use and mental health disorders, individuals with disabilities, veterans, and survivors of domestic violence to be on pathways to stability through this specialized housing with direct connections to health care, counseling, and other supportive services.”
Along with Boston, the legal challenge includes the city of Cambridge, local governments in Arizona, California, Tennessee, and Washington, and multiple nonprofit organizations that focus on homelessness.
Last week, Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Campbell joined a coalition of 20 states to file a similar lawsuit in Rhode Island.
HUD spokespeople did not return a request for comment Tuesday.
Boston has applied for and received CoC grants since the early ’90s. It uses this money to focus on a “housing first” strategy, where people are moved into stable housing as quickly as possible and given resources to stay housed, according to the city.
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The approach “views housing as the foundation for life improvement,” according to the National Alliance to End Homelessness. When the strategy is implemented, people can access housing faster and are more likely to remain stably housed, according to the organization.
“With 98% of our tenants remaining housed after a year, and a street homelessness rate of under 2.5%, we are doing something right in Boston,” Lyndia Downie, the president and executive director of the Pine Street Inn, said in a statement. “With data proving the efficacy of permanent supportive housing, it would be disastrous to abandon this approach, and would set back our progress by decades.”
The Trump administration, on the other hand, says the “housing first” strategy encourages people to rely on government handouts and does not address the “root causes” of homelessness like “illicit drugs and mental illness.”
The CoC program strayed from its competitive roots under the Biden administration, when only about 10% of projects had competitive bidding processes. Transitional housing projects never received more than 2% of CoC funding during those four years, according to HUD.
Now, more than half of the 2026 CoC funding will be cut from permanent housing and moved to transitional housing assistance, Politico reported.
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Last year, Congress authorized a two-year funding cycle for the CoC program, which allowed HUD to solicit applications and make awards for fiscal years 2024 and 2025. The recent changes announced by HUD came just weeks before fiscal year 2025 awards would have been distributed. The changes initiated a new competition for fiscal year 2025 awards, and no new awards will be distributed until next May at the earliest. This means that programs across the country with expiring grants will be left without funding for months. Some 170,000 people could be affected, according to the lawsuit.
“The belated decision has upended the network of CoC-funded projects, disrupted their operations, and is forcing them to recreate their long-time programming under an unworkable deadline,” the plaintiffs wrote in their complaint.
In May, the Wu administration joined other parties from across the country in suing the federal government over its threats to cancel $3.6 billion in CoC grants if local entities did not adhere to requirements outlined in executive orders. In June, a federal judge in Washington issued a preliminary injunction barring the Trump administration from imposing these grant conditions. The Trump administration is appealing the decision.
“We cannot allow the federal government to punch down on our most vulnerable residents by abandoning its responsibility to fund housing and essential services for people experiencing homelessness, including veterans and those facing mental health challenges,” Boston City Council President Ruthzee Louijeune said in a statement this week.
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