The Washington Post · on a Washington Post review of homelessness spending in 12 cities
The Post reviewed the budgets of 12 U.S. cities with large homeless populations and found combined spending on homeless services rose more than 75 percent over the past five years. The piece opened at Phoenix's Safe Outdoor Space, a 200-tent site the Post said costs the city about $6.5 million a year, or $27,000 per structure, to operate for about 300 people.
Phoenix's city council approved a $5 million master-leasing pilot on Sept. 23, 2026.
The Phoenix City Council voted Wednesday, September 23, to begin building private partnerships for a $5 million master leasing pilot in which the city leases apartments from landlords and subleases them to people leaving the shelter system who would fail credit or eviction screening. The program would start with at least 50 units and is funded through a combination of federal funds and the city's Office of Homeless Solutions. The nonprofit A New Leaf said it would help identify shelter residents who are employed and stable but blocked by rental history.
The Bangor City Council voted unanimously Monday night not to fund a local version of Portland, Maine's Project HOPE, which would have hired a coordinator and three housing navigators through three local shelters to move people from encampments into apartments. MaineHousing had offered to cover 70% of the cost, leaving the city to contribute $126,000; councilors said they could not agree on a funding source among opioid settlement funds, the unassigned fund balance, or a community development block grant. Councilor Susan Faloon said the vote meant saying no to $300,000 in state funding.
A motion to postpone failed 3-5, with Deane, Faloon and Leonard in favor.
The elected members of the Homelessness Response System's governing committee voted Friday to reduce the number of people homeless in Multnomah County by 10% by June 2028, which the Oregonian reported is the first numerical target of its kind in at least a decade. The package also set goals to cut unsheltered homelessness 8% and move 12,350 people into housing over two years, which deputy director Ryan Deibert said would require housing 27% more people than in the prior two years and maintaining about $35 million in one-time city and county funding. Mayor Keith Wilson cast the lone no vote, calling the goals "a good starting point" that he said did not reflect the urgency of the crisis.
The goals passed 4–1, with Chair Jessica Vega Pederson, Commissioner Shannon Singleton, Gresham Mayor Travis Stovall and Councilor Eric Zimmerman in favor and Wilson opposed; the target and the current estimated total of about 14,500 people are countywide, not city-only.
The San Francisco Standard · on new SF homelessness department director Mike Levine's contracting plans
Mike Levine, who took charge of San Francisco's Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing and its $700 million annual budget in June after nearly a decade at MassHealth, said in an interview that more people are entering the city's homelessness system than exiting it and that the city underspends on prevention. Levine said he wants to tie nonprofit contracts to long-term housing outcomes, such as tenancy preservation at three, six and 12 months, rather than paying out invoices, and has invited providers that do not currently serve San Francisco to weigh in on the contract rebid.
Roughly 8,000 San Franciscans remain unhoused despite a drop in street homelessness in the city's most recent count.
The Modesto City Council approved $591,000 on Tuesday as a consent item to sustain The Salvation Army's homeless services on South Ninth Street, comprising $491,000 from the state's Permanent Local Housing Allocation program and $100,000 from the city's Cannabis Community Benefit fund. The vote was 6-0, with Councilman Jeremiah Williams recused. A city staff report said the money covers staffing, program administration and facility costs at the shelter campus.
Stanislaus County supervisors had earlier approved an amendment with The Salvation Army, which operates the shelter, extending operations only through September.
Westside Current · on the Homes for LA Round 2 affordable-housing funding round
The Los Angeles City Council voted 13-0 Tuesday to authorize the Los Angeles Housing Department, subject to mayoral approval, to release the Homes for LA Round 2 regulations and open a $466.6 million affordable-housing funding round, led by $324.1 million from Measure ULA revenue. Housing Committee chair Imelda Padilla spoke in support of new quarterly oversight requirements attached to the round.
The $466.6 million round opens only after mayoral approval of the released regulations; no money is awarded by the vote itself.
A presentation to Oceanside's City Council detailed how the city's Housing and Neighborhood Services department spent its $42.6 million 2025-26 budget, with $35 million — 82% — going to federally funded Section 8 rental assistance. Of 190 people served at the 75-bed Oceanside Navigation Center last fiscal year, 10% exited to permanent housing and a little more than 12% to temporary housing; a city spokesperson said that figure "doesn't reflect the full range of positive outcomes." The city's 2026 point-in-time count found 569 people experiencing homelessness, with the unsheltered count up nearly 14% from last year.
Measure X, a half-cent sales tax Oceanside voters passed in 2024, provides $1.5 million to the Navigation Center and $330,000 to the city's safe parking program.
Long Beach City Auditor Laura Doud said her office identified irregularities during an audit of two of the city's homeless service providers and has turned the investigation over to an outside agency, which she declined to identify. The audit examined millions of dollars in homeless services contracts, and Doud cited questionable billings and missing documentation.
Doud previously described the findings as "more concerning than a standard, routine audit" and called it one of her office's top audits in 20 years.
The Encinitas City Council voted unanimously on September 16 to end its shelter partnership with Vista's Buena Creek Navigation Center and instead contract with the San Diego Rescue Mission for up to 12 dedicated beds at its South County Lighthouse facility in National City. The Rescue Mission beds would cost $87 per occupied bed per night, with an annual maximum of $381,060; staying at Buena Creek would have cost an estimated $715,000 annually, up from $488,758 in fiscal year 2025-26.
A staff report identified potential state funding of $684,575 over five years through the Permanent Local Housing Allocation program.
An internal Los Angeles housing department memo said SRO Housing Corp., which operates 2,500 units of affordable housing in nearly three dozen Skid Row buildings, needed "immediate assistance," was facing "severe financial distress," anticipated roughly six months of solvency, and would shut down without help. CEO Anita Nelson told Politico she never told the city the organization expected to close in six months and said it is not currently planning to do so.
Another major Skid Row supportive-housing landlord, the Skid Row Housing Trust, collapsed in 2023.
San Francisco's Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing held three community-listening sessions across the city in the past week on its plan to rebid homelessness services contracts, and the deadline for its request for information was extended from September 21 to mid-October. The chair of the Homeless Emergency Services Provider Association, which represents around 35 providers, said the feedback questions are nuanced and answering them has taken significant effort, and providers said outcomes-based payment could penalize organizations serving higher-acuity clients.
The reprocurement policy tying contracts to outcomes was announced in late August, covering roughly $500 million in homelessness services contracts.
Federal prosecutors charged three people Wednesday with stealing $12 million in federal and state homelessness aid, alleging the money went to real estate, luxury trips and vintage vehicles. Lakiya Malone, 48, and Michael Young, 46, were arrested in Los Angeles; a third defendant, Donye Mitchell, 55, is considered a fugitive. Young founded Home At Last, a nonprofit that took in more than $118 million in public funds since 2019.
The charges were announced the day after the House DOGE subcommittee's September 15 hearing on homelessness-services spending.
House Oversight Committee · on the DOGE subcommittee's homelessness-spending hearing
The Delivering on Government Efficiency subcommittee held its September 15 hearing on homelessness-services spending, with testimony from Jonathan Choe of the Discovery Institute, Paul Webster of the Cicero Institute and Samantha Batko of the Urban Institute. The majority's wrap-up said Los Angeles has taken in $2 billion in federal funds since 2005, including $220 million in 2024, and that overall homelessness there has doubled. Webster alleged LAHSA's chief executive signed $2.1 million in contracts with the nonprofit that employs her husband; Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, who was invited, did not appear.
Chairman Tim Burchett announced the hearing September 14, and federal prosecutors charged three people with Los Angeles homelessness-aid fraud the day after it was held.
Republican gubernatorial candidate Steve Hilton and Los Angeles mayoral challenger Nithya Raman presented homelessness platforms at a forum hosted by the nonprofit Hope the Mission and KTLA5. Raman cited a Los Angeles Times report that 40% of Inside Safe participants returned to the streets and proposed short-term rental vouchers she said have a 75% effectiveness rate at moving people to permanent housing or self-sustainability; Hilton called California's homelessness situation a "scandal."
The 2026 Greater L.A. Homeless Count estimated 45,000 unhoused people in the city of Los Angeles, a 3.4% increase after two years of decreases.
Houston's Housing and Community Development Department recommended approving up to an additional $485,000 in community development block grant funds for Beacon of Downtown Houston for case management, diversion, and rapid resolution services. A separate contract worth more than $1.28 million would support the Texas Homeless Housing and Services Program, covering activities including construction, development, or acquisition of housing.
Seattle Mayor Katie Wilson released a shelter action plan that would add nearly 1,000 shelter beds by the end of 2027 compared with the start of 2026, dedicating $37 million to new shelter capacity that the city estimates would serve about 1,750 people annually. The plan also includes approximately $11.2 million in 2027 for rental assistance, eviction prevention, legal services and case management for households at risk of homelessness. Eight shelters are planned to open in 2027, funded through the mayor's 2027–2028 proposed budget.
The mayor's 2027–2028 proposed budget funding the plan is scheduled for release Tuesday, September 22.
The Chronicle reported that San Francisco's new effort to fund homelessness service providers based on measurable results has drawn public support from the Cicero Institute, the policy organization founded by Joe Lonsdale that has drafted model anti-camping and treatment-first legislation adopted in several states. A critic quoted in the story called Cicero a "very problematic political operation" and said its praise is "in service of a billionaire agenda to undermine the safety net."
Mayor Lurie's administration announced August 31 that providers must reapply for roughly $500 million in homelessness services contracts under an outcomes-based model.
The Minnesota Department of Corrections reported that 57% fewer people are leaving prison into homelessness since 2021, when the state began sending $500,000 per year to the DOC for homelessness prevention. The program pays initial rental costs at halfway houses, sober homes, and apartments; program lead Jennifer Abbas said the DOC housed around 800 formerly incarcerated people last year.
The figure comes from the DOC's annual report on the program, funded at $500,000 annually since 2021.
NH&RA · on HUD's posted guidance canceling the August 26 CoC application deadline
HUD posted guidance on its CoC Program Competition page stating the 2026 NOFO and its August 26, 2026 application deadline "are no longer in force" and that it is unable to accept applications at this time. HUD said further guidance and updates will come via the SNAPS Competition Listserv and HUD.gov; NH&RA noted the same judge previously ruled against HUD's FY2025 NOFO changes, a ruling HUD unsuccessfully appealed.
The FY2026 NOFO was vacated by a federal judge in Rhode Island on August 7.