Local governments challenge latest attacks on homelessness funding grants

Providence, R.I. – A broad coalition of local governments and nonprofit organizations has challenged the Trump-Vance administration’s latest attempt to disrupt federal funding for people trying to escape homelessness. Although the court had previously stopped unlawful restrictions on federal homelessness funding, the administration is once again making changes that will kick people out of permanent housing and back onto the streets.

In a supplemental filing in National Alliance to End Homelessness et al v. Turner et al, the coalition asks a court to block HUD’s 2026 grant notice for the Continuum of Care (CoC) program. CoC is the nation’s more than $4 billion program to support efforts to end homelessness. The new notice repeats a series of legal flaws that caused a court to stop the 2025 notice from taking effect. 

“Local governments have spent years building partnerships that help people stay housed,” said Toby Merrill, Director of Litigation, Public Rights Project. “These unlawful changes threaten that work and put vulnerable people at greater risk of homelessness. We’re proud to stand with cities and counties willing to fight in court to make sure that HUD follows the law.”

In the new notice, HUD sets aside $1.3 billion — nearly a third of all available funding — for new projects only, even though Congress required that money be available to renew existing ones. 

HUD also requires grantees to comply with conditions unrelated to homelessness, including abandoning diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives; rejecting transgender and nonbinary people’s identities; and helping enforce federal immigration law.

It has always been HUD’s obligation to release funding in a timely manner through a lawful CoC program competition. However, HUD last year attempted to radically upend this critical program with a notice that threatened to push nearly 200,000 Americans into homelessness. 

Public Rights Project represents the cities of Boston, Cambridge, Nashville and Tucson. 

Read today’s supplemental complaint here.