Although it’s still entangled in a federal court battle, the specter of the Trump administration’s federal funding freeze threatens to upend housing stability for thousands of Atlantans.
“More than 18,000 residents who rely on [federal] housing vouchers currently do not know how their rent will be paid next month, and workers across various federally funded programs risk losing their pay,” Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens said in a statement on Jan. 28, the day the funding freeze was initially set to take effect.
Most of the local government agencies and nonprofits that provide housing and supportive services for lower-income and unhoused people rely heavily on federal money to operate — so when President Donald Trump issued a hastily authored executive order to pause the flow of trillions of dollars of federal grants and loans late last month, panic spread among city leaders.
Dwayne Vaughan, the chief operating officer for Atlanta Housing (AH), which administers the 18,000 federal housing vouchers, called the executive order “concerning” during a Jan. 28 Atlanta City Council committee meeting.
Courtney English, the mayor’s top policy advisor, put it more bluntly: “Gravely distressing is how I would describe it,” he said at the council meeting.
The funding freeze was set to take effect at 5 p.m. that day — but the Trump administration blindsided local government agencies and nonprofits by cutting off their access to grant disbursal programs hours earlier.
Cathryn Vassell, who heads the city’s primary homeless services nonprofit, Partners For HOME, was stunned to find a blank screen when she logged into the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) grant disbursal website on Jan. 28.
The HUD website came back online on Jan. 31, soon after a federal judge in Washington, D.C., temporarily blocked the executive order, Vassell told Atlanta Civic Circle, but other government agencies across the country have reported that they’re still locked out.
Yet even the organizations that have regained access to the federal housing grant disbursal programs fear the consequences of the freeze taking full effect.
Partners For HOME has surveyed the groups it supports with federal dollars — but Vassell said it’s difficult to assess the potential impact, due to the situation’s uncertainty.
“This assessment is very challenging, because we have no idea what — if any — cuts will actually be made and when,” she said in a Feb. 7 text message. “But any cuts could be dire to the thousands of people that are being supported by our system in housing subsidies and supportive housing around the city.”
The looming threat of a funding freeze or major HUD budget cuts casts an ominous shadow over Atlanta’s homeless services and rental assistance programs. The city’s homeless outreach services are already severely underfunded, compared to similarly sized municipalities like Boston and Miami.
What about rent voucher recipients?
With over 18,000 Atlantans at risk of losing their rent subsidies from federal Housing Choice (Section 8) vouchers, AH is monitoring the federal court case and bracing for potential fallout, according to the public housing authority’s spokesperson, Carolyn Smith.
“We have been proactively working with our internal subject matter experts, external partners, and federal agencies to understand the practical implications of this order on our operations and the families we serve,” she said in a Jan. 28 statement to Atlanta Civic Circle. “Our priority remains ensuring the stability and well-being of the residents who depend on Atlanta Housing.”
Meanwhile, the Atlanta Volunteer Lawyers Foundation (AVLF), which offers free legal aid to low-income tenants fighting evictions, is gearing up for a potential surge of legal battles with landlords, who could see the funding freeze as an opportunity to remove Section 8 voucher recipients.
“For the tenants, the very real, very human toll could include joining the already growing ranks of homelessness in Atlanta,” AVLF’s executive director, Michael Lucas, said in an email. “We are talking about residents — seniors, those with disabilities, the working poor — who are living with a very thin margin of error.”
If the federal funding freeze takes effect and prompts a wave of eviction filings from landlords, he added, AVLF will argue in court that it’s the federal government, not the tenants it represents, that has failed to pay the Section 8 voucher portion of their rent, Lucas said. The government would have to answer for “not meeting its contractual obligation [with landlords] to pay a portion of the tenants’ rent.”
Equally concerning, Lucas added, is the chilling effect that the payment uncertainty could have on landlord participation in rental assistance programs.
“We need more, not less, landlords who are willing to accept these government subsidies — subsidies that support Atlanta residents,” he said. “I fear the current uncertainty around federal funding is going to hinder Atlanta Housing’s committed efforts to recruit more landlords and support more residents.”
AH has a waitlist of over 20,000 people seeking subsidized housing, but the housing shortage, coupled with a dearth of landlords willing to accept Section 8 tenants, has limited the agency’s ability to chip away at it.
As Atlanta officials and housing advocates scramble to assess the potential freeze’s impact, thousands of vulnerable residents remain in limbo, awaiting clarity on whether their housing will remain secure.
I’m a 63 yr old homeless woman who stays in a transitional facility x 2 1/2 years. Mayor Dickens put aside federal funding grants for senior housing. The freeze on federal funding per Trump is catastrophic as I have been waiting on an affordable housing voucher for 2 1/2 yrs. This opportunity continues to be a blessing in that I could retire with some dignity and some grace. What are senior citizens going to do?