Last Friday, President Donald Trump signed an executive order eliminating seven critical government agencies “to the maximum extent consistent with applicable law.” Among the most alarming of these is the elimination of the United States Interagency Council on Homelessness — an agency that coordinates federal efforts across 19 agencies throughout the federal government to prevent and end homelessness.
USICH plays an important role in bringing agencies like the Department of Housing and Urban Development, Federal Emergency Management Agency, and the Department of Health and Human Services together to allocate resources effectively to end homelessness. Without USICH, federal funding from agencies would be fragmented and insufficient, and the absence of federal coordination places the burden of mitigating homelessness on local governments. The elimination of agencies and services that help people gain stable housing will only worsen the national homelessness crisis, particularly in places like New York City where homelessness is already at its highest in decades.
A 2024 report found that a fifth of the entire nation’s homeless population is in New York City, with roughly 158,000 homeless New Yorkers. Between January 2023 and January 2024, the city saw a 53.1% increase in homelessness — quadruple the national average. Additionally, New York City receives over $100 billion in federal funding, with over $3.6 billion going to the Department of Homeless Services, which programs designed to provide shelters and temporary housing. Cuts to federal grants will impact initiatives like the New York City Housing Authority — which receives 70% of its operational budget from federal funds, and administers the largest Section 8 housing program in the country — putting over 100,000 low-income households at risk of homelessness.
President Donald Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency has also been threatening massive cuts targeting the HUD, which funds affordable housing programs and vouchers. HUD provides $3.7 million for New York City’s Department of Homeless Services and $54 million for the Department of Housing Preservation and Development, as well as funding for several affordable housing organizations. Without federal coordination, these funds are more likely to be mismanaged, delayed or entirely cut. Cuts to HUD will also most likely reduce affordable housing construction and the availability of Section 8 housing in New York City.
Scott Turner, the secretary of HUD, recently alleged that the Continuum of Care — a HUD-administered grant program seeking to end homelessness by funding local and state initiatives — had been using its funds to push progressive ideological points rather than properly address homelessness, something he claims will now be corrected. This is why the new, now rescinded, grant agreements emphasized that funding recipients wouldn’t promote matters concerning any sanctuary immigration policy.
In fact, a great deal of attention has gone towards removing programs aimed at preventing care for immigrant homelessness. The Trump administration also recently retracted $80 million in FEMA funds which was allocated for housing migrants being bused to New York City. Project 2025 also proposed that noncitizens — including mixed-status families — be prohibited from living in federally subsidized housing. The prohibition of noncitizens from federal housing is especially problematic for New York City, which has had an influx of tens of thousands of asylum seekers and ranks 8th in the nation for the largest immigrant population. This will directly affect services that aid and house asylum seekers, leading to higher homelessness rates.
While nonprofit groups do amazing work providing what they can for their local communities, it is irresponsible for our government to offload the entirety of the homelessness crisis on them. And though private and nonprofit organizations provide temporary relief to the current homeless population, this crisis will never be resolved without our government addressing the root of the problem — inequities among marginalized groups in terms of stability, opportunity and respect. And there is no better way to address this than by allowing USICH, an organization designed to coordinate the federal government’s response to the homelessness, to do their job.
Reducing the federal government’s investment in affordable housing will allow homelessness to continue to rise, and organizations that try to provide stop-gap solutions will be overrun and rendered ineffective by lack of funding and petty ideological squabbles. If we want to end homelessness, we must prioritize investments in housing, healthcare and social services — and restore agencies like USICH that will work to address the problem of homelessness across the nation.
WSN’s Opinion section strives to publish ideas worth discussing. The views presented in the Opinion section are solely the views of the writer.
Contact Serin Lee at [email protected].
