On any given weekday morning, a line forms outside Crossroads Community Ministries downtown, made up of dozens of Atlantans seeking a lifeline from homelessness. Since President Donald Trump took office three months ago, that line has only gotten longer, a reflection of how nonprofits like Crossroads are struggling to meet people’s critical needs for housing at a time when key federal partners are in disarray.
Crossroads specializes in helping people secure paperwork they need to get stable housing, such as Social Security cards, income verification, and immigration forms. But staffing shortages from mass layoffs at the US Social Security Administration have made those documents far harder to obtain.
“We only have three case managers in that core services program, and they can each see eight to 10 people a day — so 20 to 30 at most,” said Tony Johns, Crossroads’ executive director. “That line sometimes has 60, 70, 80 people. It’s a situation we absolutely hate.”
Since this time last year, he said, Crossroads has seen a 17% spike in demand for its core services — including counseling, case management, and providing mailboxes for unhoused people who need addresses to apply for government programs. That demand is only expected to grow, Johns said.
Job cuts at federal agencies like the Social Security Administration and the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) are hampering nonprofits’ ability to assist clients, forcing organizations like Crossroads and supportive housing provider Project Community Connections to turn away those they might otherwise help. The consequences ripple through the system.
“Many people don’t understand that 40% of households in Atlanta are a week away from homelessness, and that any disruption to any stabilizing program could be catastrophic,” Johns said.
Unintended consequences
To apply for a lease at one of the city of Atlanta’s new rapid housing complexes, a person must have a Social Security card, among other documentation. With a mailing address, you can seek Social Security assistance online. Without one, you have to visit an office in person, but it can take weeks or months to get an appointment. Show up unannounced, and you’ll likely be turned away. There simply aren’t enough people in the offices anymore to handle walk-ins.
Upheaval at HUD is causing similar problems. Jimiyu Evans, the co-CEO of Project Community Connections, said he’s anxiously awaiting word from HUD on the status of a $1.1 million rapid rehousing grant it depends on to provide rental assistance for about 125 people. He blames the communication lapse on federal staff shortages.
“We’ve got an award notification,” Evans said. “But we don’t have a contract. Without a contract, we won’t be able to move forward and pay the landlords we work with.”
The uncertainty doesn’t end there. Evans fears that the Trump administration’s proposed cuts to federal housing aid could deeply affect Project Community Connection’s ability to operate. The nonprofit currently procures apartments, administers federal rent subsidies, and provides supportive services for roughly 1,500 people — but that won’t be possible if the White House guts housing-aid programs, as it’s reportedly proposed.
A short-lived federal funding freeze in January, currently blocked by the courts, has also raised concerns about the long-term viability of programs dependent on HUD dollars.
“We’re looking at how long we can survive as an organization if funding is cut, and what that could look like from an operational perspective,” Evans said. That could mean cutting the organization’s staff, or possibly merging with other nonprofits within the city’s Continuum of Care — the network of HUD-backed public and private organizations dedicated to addressing homelessness issues.
Scott Walker, who heads the nonprofit developer and homeless services provider 3Keys, said any reductions in federal housing funding will force local nonprofits to scramble for already scarce philanthropic dollars.
“[HUD] is inundated with uncertainty right now, so they’re not as available as they have been in the past,” Walker said, noting that 3Keys also doesn’t know the status of potential federal grants. “We’re trying to either develop or maintain the [private] funder relationships that we have currently.”
3Keys, like Project Community Connections, has been talking with other local nonprofits “about cost-saving measures and Plan B responses that we may need to support each other,” he added. “We need to be mindful that we’re not sure how things are going to play out, but it’s important for us to band together.”
Homelessness surge imminent?
Walker, Evans, and Johns each emphasized that cutting federal housing funding and slashing agencies that provide housing assistance will likely precipitate a surge in homelessness.
That will only place a heavier burden on taxpayers, they said, since unhoused people seek refuge at homeless shelters, or wind up in hospital emergency rooms or jail with far greater frequency than housed people. It’s far cheaper to get them into stable housing.
If the Trump administration carries out its plans to dismantle social safety net programs, “it will overwhelm the system,” Johns said. “Police response times will be slower. Ambulance response times will be slower. Access to emergency rooms will be clogged. There’s a lot of effects coming.”
If the federal government continues down this cost-cutting path and homeless populations explode, he continued, the adverse effects from increased homelessness will be visible as much as financial.
“Forget NIMBY, or ‘not in my backyard,’” Johns said. “This problem is going to be in your backyard. But that should not be the reason that we respond. We need to respond because it’s the right thing to do — because we care about humanity, and we want our community to thrive.”
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