HUD rules raise concern: Will ex-homeless lose housing in Pierce County?
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- Most federal CoC funding in Pierce County supports permanent supportive housing (PSH).
- HUD is pivoting away from the Housing First model with its new homelessness funding rules.
- The shift has local officials concerned that hundreds could lose PSH.
Pierce County service providers and advocates for people experiencing homelessness worry hundreds could be at risk of losing permanent supportive housing under a shift in federal funding rules.
The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development announced changes to annual federal homelessness assistance on June 1, pivoting away from a housing-first approach that the Trump administration claims has been ineffective and wasteful.
“The ‘housing first’ experiment failed Americans by warehousing the vulnerable without results. Instead, billions of taxpayer dollars were spent while homelessness increased to record levels,” HUD Secretary Scott Turner said in a statement. “Housing alone will not solve a crisis driven by addiction and mental illness. Under President Trump’s leadership, HUD is making necessary reforms to put recovery first.”
As a result, the agency said that $4 billion in available Continuum of Care (CoC) grant funding for fiscal year 2026 will be more heavily invested than in prior years toward addressing the root causes of homelessness, including $1.3 billion toward new projects for transitional housing and supportive services.
But the shift has raised concerns in Pierce County about the community’s most vulnerable residents who found stability through long-term housing and accompanying services.
Shawn Durnen, the board chair of The Greater Pierce County Continuum of Care, the regional planning group that coordinates the local homelessness response, said Friday that the region will lose 40% to 60% of its permanent supportive housing under HUD’s new funding rules.
“We will absolutely see some of these people who finally had some stability back on the street,” Durnen said in an interview.
Pierce County historically has received $4 million to $5 million in annual CoC funding, with the vast majority dedicated to sustaining permanent supportive housing (PSH) programs, according to a joint statement by Pierce County and the city of Tacoma. There are roughly 300 PSH units in the county.
“In short, Pierce County and the City of Tacoma are deeply concerned about the unprecedented uncertainty caused by this funding change,” the two governments said Thursday in response to questions from The News Tribune.
The Housing First model, without any prerequisites, prioritizes permanent housing for people experiencing homelessness.
“This approach is guided by the belief that people need basic necessities like food and a place to live before attending to anything less critical, such as getting a job, budgeting properly, or attending to substance use issues,” the National Alliance to End Homelessness says, adding that supportive services are offered but voluntary.
Groups such as the National Low Income Housing Coalition say that the model works.
“By prioritizing stable housing and giving clients the power to decide the services they need, the Housing First approach is more effective at reducing homelessness and increasing housing stability than the high-barrier Treatment First or abstinence-based programs,” the coalition says.
The group also asserts that Housing First contrasts with the one-size-fits-all approach offered by treatment-first programs.
In announcing the new rules, HUD contended the Continuum of Care program had become the-one-size-fits-all approach, noting that 88% of funding awards nationwide went to permanent housing in 2024 compared to 1% that supported transitional housing projects.
“To the extent permitted by law, HUD is shifting its focus from awarding nearly 90% of CoC funding to Permanent Housing to expand opportunities for other components of the CoC program,” the agency said in its Notice of Funding Opportunity on June 1.
Durnen, who is also president of NineLine Veteran Services, said there was a major need for permanent supportive housing and much evidence-based data that showed the Housing First model’s effectiveness. At the same time, he acknowledged merit to the services being prioritized by HUD, which include transitional housing and projects focused on supporting domestic-violence victims.
“The downside to this is: with HUD, it’s one or another,” he said.
The shift from permanent housing to shorter-term programs feels like changing the rules of a game halfway through, according to Rob Huff, spokesperson for the Tacoma Pierce County Coalition to End Homelessness.
“It’s pretty clear that this will pull the rug out from folks who were led to believe that they were in a secure situation,” he said in an interview.
Officials and advocates say they are focused on mitigating the effects of the changes.
“No matter the funding situation we face, we remain committed to doing whatever it takes to protect the stability and safety of our most vulnerable residents who are most at risk of falling into homelessness,” Pierce County and the city of Tacoma jointly said.
The governments vowed to aggressively pursue every available funding opportunity during what they called a much more competitive grant-awarding cycle than last year. If they fail to secure certain funds, they said, people with the most need who rely on permanent supportive housing will be disproportionately affected.
“Destabilizing these households may compromise our community’s ability to maintain housing stability,” likely leading to an increase in returns to homelessness, surging demand on the local emergency shelter system and an increase in unsheltered homelessness, according to the governments.
“While HUD’s priorities are shifting, the new focus areas include outreach, prevention, and supporting families with children — all initiatives that we already strongly prioritize and fund,” they said. “Because we remain eligible to compete for these resources, it is too early to determine exactly how many households could be affected by these changes.”
HUD sought to install more drastic changes last fall during the funding cycle, but a federal judge blocked the effort after a coalition of states and other jurisdictions, including Washington and Pierce County, sued over the proposal, alleging that its conditions were illegal.
