Maricopa County could be at risk of losing nearly 1,400 housing units for disabled, formerly homeless people. The Trump administration has announced a dramatic shift in federal funding opportunities for homeless service providers.
The Department of Housing and Urban Development announced this month that its next round of grants will cap the amount of funding that can go toward a category of homeless shelter known as “permanent supportive housing.”
A HUD press release said these programs are based on a “failed ideology” which “encourages dependence on endless government handouts while neglecting to address the root causes of homelessness, including illicit drugs and mental illness.”
Tim Burch is Human Services director for the city of Tempe and is one of the co-chairs for the Maricopa Regional Continuum of Care. He said permanent supporting housing units go to the most medically fragile individuals — people who have been chronically homeless for more than a year and who have one or more disabilities.
“Those are the populations we’re most worried about because they’re not highly likely to gain and maintain employment to be able to support themselves because of those disabilities,” Burch said.
Burch said, since the HUD announcement, regional partners have been scrambling to tailor grant applications to fit the new requirements. But it’s a major change. More than 80% of funding in Maricopa County goes to these permanent housing units now. HUD will cap that at 30% for grant applications due in January.
“We’re really extremely focused as a Continuum on sculpting our response to this competitive process so that we maximize our points for our community and keep as many people housed as possible,” Burch said.
Congressman Greg Stanton is among those calling for HUD to reconsider its abrupt overhaul of homeless services grant opportunities.
“With this shift, the Trump administration is abandoning decades of evidence-based policy,” Stanton said in a letter to HUD this week. “The sudden and significant changes to longstanding federal policy represent a near-unworkable challenge to local governments, as well as housing developers and investors.”
The HUD announcement said the new grant requirements represent “the most significant policy reforms and changes in the program’s history.”
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