The Trump administration last week suffered setbacks in two lawsuits concerning its efforts to rewrite federal housing and homelessness grant criteria.
A Rhode Island judge on March 31 found the administration acted illegally last September when it imposed new requirements for receiving Continuum of Care grants roughly a week before grant applications were due.
The administration’s new criteria for the $75 million grant program — which goes toward building or refurbishing permanent supportive housing — required recipients to certify that they do not offer safe injection sites or hold views affirming people who are transgender.
U.S. District Judge Mary McElroy called the administration’s actions a “slapdash imposition of political whims on CoC Builds grants” in her conclusion that the administration violated the Administrative Procedure Act.
“Once again, this Court is faced with a case in which an executive agency has made a last-minute decision to make major, disruptive changes to grants within its purview, all for the express purpose of accomplishing the current administration’s policy objectives,” McElroy wrote.
McElroy denied the plaintiffs’ request for a permanent injunction against future CoC criteria changes from the administration, however, calling such a measure “overly speculative.”
And, on April 1, a First Circuit Court of Appeals in Rhode Island denied the Trump administration’s request to overturn a court order blocking it from rescinding a two-year notice of funding opportunity for CoC grants and issuing a new one that shifted funds away from permanent supportive housing — a move housing advocacy groups said could leave as many as 200,000 people homeless.
“In sum, the record paints a disturbing picture of the harms that would flow to the plaintiffs, their constituents, and the public from issuing a stay,” the U.S. Circuit Court ruling states.
Housing and homeless advocacy groups that filed the lawsuits celebrated the rulings. National Alliance to End Homelessness CEO Ann Oliva called the March 31 decision “a victory for people across this nation who have overcome homelessness and stabilized in HUD’s permanent housing programs.”
The Trump administration has vowed to continue its effort to end funding for “housing first” policies, which a spokesperson for the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development said “rewarded activists” and “ignored solutions,” Reuters reported.
