Federal policy changes could force hundreds into homelessness in Multnomah County

Roughly 800 households in Multnomah County are at imminent risk of homelessness if a change in federal funding advances as expected.

“This is a horrible thing to have to face as a community,” said Chair Jessica Vega Pederson at a Tuesday county board hearing. “We absolutely have a federal administration that is really trying to put forward policies that we know are gonna harm people.”

The county says it faces losing more than $25 million meant to address the region’s homeless crisis in the coming year from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. The news comes after rates of homelessness across the county surge to record levels.

But the federal cuts aren’t certain.

In November, HUD announced it would overhaul the Continuum of Care program, the government system that issues grants to address homelessness. Multnomah County applies for funding through this program annually, and those dollars are distributed among about 15 nonprofits that operate housing and outreach programs.

HUD cut the amount of funding available for permanent supportive housing programs — programs where the government subsidizes or fully pays rent for formerly homeless people who may be unable to live on their own due to a mental illness or disability. These programs also offer services to help people gain stability, such as on-site treatment programs or job training.

The federal agency also introduced new requirements for housing programs; mandated participation in substance abuse treatment programs, restrictions on operating clean needle exchanges, and prohibitions on creating programs that benefit a certain race or gender.

“These long-overdue reforms will promote independence and ensure we are supporting means-tested approaches to carry out the president’s mandate, connect Americans with the help they need, and make our cities and towns beautiful and safe,” said HUD Secretary Scott Turner at the time.

Many of these new requirements violate Multnomah County’s own policies, which reflect equity goals once mandated by HUD under previous presidential administrations.

“It’s a complete 180,” said Anna Plumb, interim director of the county’s Homeless Services Department.

Shortly after HUD announced these changes, Oregon and 18 other states filed a legal challenge. On Dec. 8, a day before a hearing on that federal lawsuit, HUD withdrew its policy revisions to “assess the issues raised by plaintiffs” and make changes. But it did not say when those changes would be published. HUD did not immediately respond to OPB’s request for comment.

Multnomah County anticipates that HUD won’t change its previously announced changes, unless a court intervenes. County officials are preparing for the worst.

The county previously anticipated receiving around $38 million through the HUD program this year. At the Tuesday board meeting, Homeless Services Department Program Specialist Erin Pidot said that if HUD upholds the Continuum of Care changes introduced in November, the county could lose $25.3 million of that money.

Programs that pay to house 800 households — more than a thousand people — could shutter as soon as early next year.

“Those are households that were chronically homeless, have significant disabling conditions and really have demonstrated that they need permanent supportive housing in order to end their homelessness,” Pidot said. “We’ll do everything possible to minimize impacts, but preventing returns to homelessness will require reprioritization of local resources.”

Pidot said the county is evaluating ways to use other funding sources, like Metro’s Supportive Housing Services fund, to pay for the threatened permanent housing programs, and using what federal funding they do receive to fill in the remaining gaps. Multnomah County anticipates collecting about $137 million in revenues through the Metro housing fund next year.

Under the HUD policy changes, the county may still be eligible for the full amount it anticipated, if it used the money on programs approved by the administration — such as street outreach programs and transitional housing, which is a type of short-term housing for people exiting homelessness.

But the county is worried it will not receive any money from the federal government because of its public opposition to other policies rolled out by President Donald Trump.

“Do we have concerns that locations that have resisted the Trump administration’s policies are less likely to get funding, regardless of the quality of their application?” asked Commissioner Meghan Moyer, who called the administration’s proposal “fascist.”

Pidot said politics is “literally written” into the new federal homeless doctrine.

“HUD reserves the right to discriminate based on misalignment with administration policy,” she said.

The deadline for applying to any funding under the Continuum of Care program is Friday. Plumb said the county won’t know what funding they receive until May. In the meantime, the county will be halting all plans to open 200 new permanent housing units, which were funded in this year’s budget.

“We are pausing on moving that forward in the case that we need to use those units to backfill folks who might otherwise lose their housing,” Plumb said.

Multnomah County is just the latest jurisdiction to learn of major changes to federal housing funding. Earlier this month, the county’s public housing authority, Home Forward, announced a $35 million budget shortfall due, in part, to HUD cuts. That includes a $14 million reduction in low-income rent subsidies through the Housing Choice Voucher program, meaning an already years-long waiting list for subsidized housing could be extended further.

Portland City Councilors introduced a resolution last week that could help buffer that financial loss with around $9 million in unspent city dollars.

County staff said they’re looking beyond just local government support to defend their housing programs.

“This is definitely an all-hands-on-deck situation where we’re pursuing as many strategies as we can,” said Pidot, “including outside of the [grant] process, through national advocacy and potential litigation.”