A lawsuit was filed against the Trump administration last week, accusing it of “unlawfully” tying federal housing grants for the homeless to places that support the president’s “partisan agenda,” which includes immigration enforcement and civil rights issues for transgender and nonbinary people.
According to court records, U.S. District Judge Mary S. McElroy of Rhode Island issued a temporary restraining order on Friday to halt the allegedly illegal restrictions on federal housing funding through the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s “Continuum of Care (CoC) Builds” program.
“The order ensures that providers and communities will not be barred from competing for lifesaving housing resources simply because they are located in jurisdictions that don’t adopt the administration’s ideological agenda, while the litigation continues,” wrote the National Alliance to End Homelessness, which is suing the government with the Women’s Development Corporation, in a statement Friday after the TRO was issued.
“For decades, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD)’s homelessness programs have supported states, localities, and service providers in building permanent supportive housing to reduce homelessness,” the department’s statement read. “The Trump-Vance administration’s sudden addition of extreme, new grant criteria sought to deny funding to entire communities based on political considerations, including whether jurisdictions support sanctuary protections, harm reduction practices, or inclusive policies for transgender people.”
In their complaint, the groups’ lawyers—represented by Democracy Forward, National Homelessness Law Center, Lawyers’ Committee for Rhode Island, and ACLU Foundation of Rhode Island—describe how Congress appropriated $75 million for HUD to build permanent supportive housing for those in need. The department identified “qualified projects” and was “prepared to award these essential funds” through federal grants before it allegedly “reversed course” last week, as the grants were set to expire on September 30.
“I think it’s unfortunate that we’re here on these things that are done so last minute by these agencies,” McElroy, who was appointed by Trump in 2019, said during a Zoom hearing on Friday, according to Reuters. She reportedly accused the administration of causing “chaos” with a policy that she acknowledged was rushed.
According to the lawsuit filed by the groups on Thursday, the government is allegedly seeking new applicants based on “newly announced criteria.”
“Under these new criteria, HUD will only award those funds for projects in jurisdictions aligned with the Administration’s broader social policy views and to applicants that will commit to them,” according to the complaint. “And HUD is rushing the funds out the door, promising to award them during a seven day period on a first-come, first-served basis for projects that clear its ideological threshold.”
According to the groups, the government no longer considers “any entity seeking to build housing in a jurisdiction with policies the administration disfavors,” as stated in the complaint. This means that no funding will be provided for projects in cities or states that have not adopted the administration’s “draconian approach to local homelessness policies” and agreed to assist in the enforcement of federal immigration laws.
“Even in jurisdictions with policies the administration deems acceptable, entities effectively cannot compete for funding unless they profess agreement with the administration’s view that sex is binary and immutable and foreswear operating safe injection sites or similar programs designed to reduce the harm from drug use — even with wholly nonfederal funds,” the lawsuit contends.
The groups argue that the government is violating the Constitution and does not have the authority to withhold funds in this manner. In the complaint filed Thursday, they asked the court to halt the “current rushed, unlawful award process” and prevent the funds at issue from expiring, allowing for “prompt award” for projects that meet “lawful” criteria.
“We welcome the court’s decision to stop a rushed, lawless attempt to make essential funding contingent on a community’s compliance with harmful and unlawful restrictions imposed by the Trump-Vance administration,” wrote the National Alliance to End Homelessness on Friday, following McElroy’s TRO. “This order ensures that service providers can focus on what is most important: providing safe, stable housing and assistance to people in crisis. We will continue to fight to ensure that housing resources are available to all communities without political interference.
