NBC News reported that at a White House complex meeting this summer, an aide to Stephen Miller presented a plan to make it easier for states to institutionalize mentally ill homeless people through a policy change that NBC said would weaken the rights of millions of disabled Americans. According to the report, after the Justice Department issued a memo making institutionalization easier, it began abandoning cases protecting disabled people's right to live in the community rather than in institutions.
The Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel issued its opinion on the Olmstead integration mandate in June 2026, following the July 2025 executive order "Ending Crime and Disorder on America's Streets."
Mid-Willamette Valley Community Action executive director Jimmy Jones said the federal shift away from Housing First in Continuum of Care funding criteria could displace 4,000 to 5,000 Oregonians back into homelessness; KATU reported his agency is among those still applying for the funds. Multnomah County said in a statement that up to a few hundred people could lose federally supported housing under the shift toward transitional housing with service requirements, and that it had submitted an application with the goal of keeping everyone currently housed in place. The White House said the change holds grantees “to higher standards of effectiveness in reducing homelessness and increasing public safety.”
Oregon joined 20 other states in suing HUD over the CoC changes on November 25, 2025; at that time Jones estimated 2,500 to 3,000 Oregonians could lose housing.
AP reporters Laura Ungar and Geoff Mulvihill reported on providers nationwide adjusting to the administration’s redirection of federal homelessness funding from permanent supportive housing toward transitional housing of up to two years with required treatment. The story cited HUD’s estimate of nearly 750,000 people homeless last year, up 31% from 2019, and roughly 173,000 permanent supportive housing beds for chronically homeless people plus 235,000 for other populations. It noted the FY2027 budget proposal would eliminate the Continuum of Care program and that an appeals court this month allowed the policy changes to proceed.
In the prior CoC competition more than 60% of funds went to permanent supportive housing and 1% to transitional housing, per the AP’s account of HUD data.
SAMHSA awarded $42.3 million in supplemental block-grant funding to states and territories to implement the July 2025 executive order "Ending Crime and Disorder on America's Streets" and the White House "Treatment First" best-practices toolkit. The total comprises $17.3 million to Community Mental Health Services Block Grant recipients and $25 million to Substance Use Prevention, Treatment, and Recovery Services Block Grant recipients for sober and recovery housing capacity, plus a separate $2 million to the Addiction Technology Transfer Center Network. The agency said the mental-health block grant portion covers technical assistance, training, policy development, and cross-system coordination rather than direct treatment services.
The executive order directing agencies to prioritize treatment and recovery over Housing First was signed July 24, 2025.
The Louisiana Housing Corp. submitted applications to the greater New Orleans and Louisiana Balance of State continuums of care requesting $42.4 million and $38 million respectively — most of each region's federal homeless services funds, now largely spent on permanent supportive housing and rapid re-housing — to establish a 200-bed transitional shelter on Airline Highway in Baton Rouge with a mandatory 20-to-40-hour-per-week services requirement. The Balance of State council rejected the application; a National Housing Law Project attorney said the state could appeal a rejection to HUD and seek to become a solo applicant for the funding. Approximately 3,500 formerly homeless people in the greater New Orleans area rely on the federally funded assistance.
A federal appeals court stayed the Rhode Island district court's August order against HUD's FY2026 funding notice on September 16, restarting the local application processes that order had paused.
A three-judge panel of the First Circuit stayed U.S. District Judge Mary McElroy's ruling that had barred HUD from setting aside $1.3 billion of the roughly $4 billion FY2026 Continuum of Care appropriation for transitional housing and supportive-service-only grants. The panel said the administration was likely to succeed in establishing that the set-aside was not subject to notice-and-comment requirements, and that HUD would suffer irreparable injury absent a stay because it must make awards by December 1, 2026. McElroy's vacatur had come in suits brought by 22 states, the District of Columbia, and a coalition of homelessness and housing groups.
McElroy set aside the FY2026 CoC NOFO in its entirety on August 7 for lack of notice and comment; the appeal is First Circuit case 26-1923.
MyNewsLA · on the House DOGE Subcommittee hearing on federally funded homelessness services
The House Oversight Subcommittee on Delivering on Government Efficiency held its hearing "Fixing Fraud and Failure in Federally Funded Homelessness Services" without Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, who declined the summons and called it a "politically-motivated hearing to attack LA." Witnesses included Cicero Institute senior fellow Paul Webster and Discovery Institute senior fellow Jonathan Choe; Chairman Tim Burchett said LAHSA has received over $1 billion in federal funds since 2021, and said in his opening statement that the federal government spends about $8 billion annually to prevent homelessness.
HUD suspended LAHSA from applying for or receiving federal grants in June, affecting $241 million Congress earmarked for the Los Angeles region.
NACo reported that HUD's September 11 Federal Register notice seeking comment on Continuum of Care bonus incentives — for transitional housing, supportive-services-only projects, sober homes, and law-enforcement coordination — is likely a precursor to revising and re-issuing the vacated FY2026 CoC NOFO once notice-and-comment requirements are satisfied. Comments are due October 13, and NACo said it will submit comments and draft a template for counties. The vacated NOFO had directed funding toward transitional housing and supportive services through a $1.3 billion set-aside.
The U.S. District Court for the District of Rhode Island set aside the FY2026 CoC NOFO in its entirety on August 7, 2026, for lack of notice and comment; HUD's appeal and emergency stay motion are pending at the First Circuit.
Federal Register (HUD) · on HUD's proposed Continuum of Care program incentive categories
HUD filed a 54-page notice for public inspection September 10 seeking comment on activities it proposes to incent through the Continuum of Care program, with comments due 30 days after its scheduled September 11 publication. The notice names five activity categories, including transitional housing with employment- and behavioral-health-focused services, supportive service participation agreements, drug-free and sober housing, and coordination with law enforcement and first responders. The notice states that as of 2023 a median of 6 percent of individuals in CoC-funded housing nationally increased their earned employment income during the reporting period.
On August 27 the First Circuit ordered the parties in NAEH v. HUD (26-1923) to brief what "bonuses or other incentives" means under 42 U.S.C. § 11386b(d)(1); HUD's stay motion in that appeal remains pending.
The Oregonian/OregonLive · on the Letty Owings Center closure
Central City Concern said it will close the Letty Owings Center, a Portland residential facility where women recover from drug addiction while living with their babies, at the end of October, along with its attached transitional housing facility, Laura's Place. CCC president Dr. Andy Mendenhall estimated that no more than 150 beds exist statewide where children can live with mothers receiving treatment, including the 29 at Letty Owings. CCC's closure announcement cited a 52% increase in the program's operating costs over five years while funding opportunities decreased, and said no other provider was found to take over the program.
Central City Concern's closure announcement sets an effective date of October 31, 2026; the center opened in 1989 and paused new admissions in July.
Cascadia Health opened Mountain View, a 10-bed secure residential treatment facility for adults with serious mental illness in Southeast Portland, in collaboration with Multnomah County and the Oregon Health Authority, with an opening event held September 3. OHA dedicated $5 million from House Bill 5024 (2021) to the project as part of an investment in creating 172 new secure residential treatment facility beds across Oregon. OHA said referrals will come primarily from hospital partners, including Oregon State Hospital, to reduce wait times for patients ready for discharge.
OHA said 1,067 of 1,660 new licensed residential treatment beds statewide are already open, with 593 more scheduled to open within the next two and a half years.
Cicero Institute · on a Cicero Institute paper on restructuring Continuum of Care funding
The Cicero Institute published a paper by Chris Sharp, Caleb Jacobs, and Ryan Prenosil proposing that HUD's Continuum of Care program shift from paying for services delivered to paying for outcomes such as exits to unsubsidized housing and employment income. The paper said total CoC provider compensation grew from $6.53 billion in 2013 to $14.22 billion in 2024, a 117.8 percent increase, while the population served grew 31 percent. It endorsed the FY2026 NOFO structure that protects 60 percent of Annual Renewal Demand and competes the remaining 40 percent, with a $1.3 billion set-aside for transitional housing and supportive-services-only projects.
The FY2026 CoC NOFO the paper endorses was vacated by the District of Rhode Island on August 7; HUD's appeal and stay motion are pending in the First Circuit (No. 26-1923).
The Mercury reported that Go Portland Go, which registered as a political action committee with the state in April and lists homelessness and behavioral health among its five priorities, has received more than $130,000 in contributions per state records. Its largest donor is the nonprofit Partnership for Progress, which gave $32,000 in June and has advocated for homeless camp sweeps and treatment-first approaches; Columbia Sportswear CEO Tim Boyle gave $25,000 the same month.
Boyle gave $150,000 in 2023 to a group lobbying to dismantle Measure 110.
Dallas leaders said they will complete a 75-unit transitional pallet housing facility with mental health support in southern Dallas. The city's Office of Housing and Community Empowerment and District 7 Council Member Adam Bazaldua announced plans in early August for approximately 75 transitional pallet homes on underutilized TxDOT property near Interstate 310, paired with behavioral health care, addiction treatment, case management and employment assistance.
Vendor Pallet has built similar communities in Atlanta, Tampa and Denver.
The city is converting the Multnomah Safe Rest Village on Southwest Multnomah Boulevard into a treatment-focused shelter: it will still house people leaving homelessness, but residents will be expected to engage in treatment and counseling during their stay. KGW reported that nearby residents gave mixed reactions and questioned whether the change will resolve the livability problems they have reported around the site.
The village opened in June 2022 as the city's first Safe Rest Village and has been operated by Urban Alchemy since July 2025.
The Times reported that Joe Lonsdale's Cicero Institute has driven Republican homelessness policy, with 21 states considering camping bans or other Cicero-backed laws in recent years and 16 passing them. Former Domestic Policy Council official Scott Centorino said at a closed-door June Cicero conference that he consulted the group in drafting President Trump's homelessness executive order; Lonsdale told the Times "our work has been one of the main influences" and put his Cicero spending at "well less" than $15 million a year. The paper reported HUD's blocked NOFO sought to move two-thirds of roughly $4 billion in annual homelessness aid to time-limited programs with work rules or treatment mandates, a change opponents warned could cost as many as 170,000 formerly homeless people their housing.
The Washington Post and Mother Jones each published their own profiles of Lonsdale and the Cicero Institute the same day, August 22.
City Councilor Steve Novick said Portland's affordable housing sector risks falling apart unless government agencies change strategy, arguing that residents with untreated behavioral health issues and little support are a growing liability for the city's affordable housing supply.
KGW reported the same week that the city is converting the Multnomah Safe Rest Village into a shelter whose residents are expected to engage in treatment and counseling.
Based on leaked audio recordings, Invisible People reported that sitting HUD and White House Domestic Policy Council officials described plans to roll back Housing First at the Cicero Institute's June 5, 2026 summit in Washington, held four days after HUD released the FY2026 Continuum of Care NOFO. HUD Assistant Secretary for Community Planning and Development Ronald Kurtz told attendees "homelessness is much less a housing problem than it is a human problem," and HUD's Caitlyn McKenney said 41% of adults in HUD-funded permanent supportive housing self-report substance use disorder.
McKenney is the HUD official whose declaration accompanied the department's August 13 emergency stay motion in the district court.
In an August 18 interview on KVI's Ari Hoffman Show, HUD Secretary Scott Turner said the administration's scrutiny of federal homelessness spending is not limited to Los Angeles, answering "Absolutely" when asked whether HUD was looking at similar action in Seattle and naming Seattle, Boston, and the Virgin Islands. Turner told KVI that federal officials found LAHSA could not account for 2,300 housing spaces and said HUD will judge programs by treatment and self-sufficiency outcomes rather than money distributed.
HUD suspended LAHSA from federal grant activity on June 11; a federal judge blocked the suspension on August 13.
HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and HUD Secretary Scott Turner announced joint "Treatment First" actions on homelessness, directing closer coordination between federal housing and behavioral health systems and outreach to Continuums of Care, housing providers, treatment and recovery grantees, state and tribal partners, and faith-based organizations. HHS described the announcement as the latest action in a shift away from what the release called the failed Housing First policies of the Biden administration.
HUD, HHS, and ONDCP released the "Best Practices Toolkit: Addressing Homelessness and Addiction Through Treatment First" on August 12 (HUD release HUD-NO-26-059).
HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and HUD Secretary Scott Turner presented the administration's "Treatment First" toolkit at the San Diego Rescue Mission in National City, describing it as a shift away from the Housing First model toward abstinence and long-term recovery; Turner called it "a playbook" of "proven and practical strategies from across the United States of America." Local providers said the region lacks the long-term residential treatment capacity the approach requires; Housing 4 the Homeless director Joanne Standlee said people need 12 to 18 months of residential treatment.
The same secretaries appeared at a Los Angeles treatment center on Aug. 11, where they said LAHSA would not receive more federal money until it showed accountability.
ONDCP, HHS, and HUD released a "Treatment First" toolkit on August 12, presented as implementing the July 2025 executive order "Ending Crime and Disorder on America's Streets." STAT reported the toolkit promotes faith-based interventions and abstinence-based recovery while rejecting harm-reduction principles and the housing-first model. The joint release said 75% of homeless Americans are addicted to drugs and 78% suffer from mental illness; HUD Secretary Scott Turner said "Housing is essential, but housing alone is not enough."
The joint ONDCP/HHS/HUD release is dated August 12, 2026.