Over 800 Atlanta households who rely on federal Continuum of Care grant funding to avoid sliding back into homelessness remain in limbo after the US Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) announced a sweeping overhaul of the grant renewal process in November. A slate of courtroom delays and unanswered questions from HUD has exacerbated confusion among local governments and nonprofits.
The federal Continuum of Care program distributes nearly $4 billion annually for homeless services. Many of the annual grants, which provide permanent supportive housing for unhoused people, will expire by the end of February, so HUD’s November announcement blindsided housing and service providers.
And nearly a month after a federal judge instructed HUD to continue renewing routine Continuum of Care grants while a legal challenge plays out, local housing and service providers still lack any clear guidance about how the new grant application process will work. They say the uncertainty and confusion makes it impossible to plan, seek out alternative funding, or reassure tenants they won’t lose their housing.
“This is just making what is already a really challenging job and ecosystem exponentially more difficult and confusing,” said Cathryn Vassell, the CEO of Atlanta-based nonprofit Partners for Home. “At this point, we’re just hoping for the best.”
Atlantans in limbo
Federal Continuum of Care funds subsidize rent and supportive services for 844 Atlanta households — who are now left to wonder if HUD will renew the grants in time. Locally, two significant grants will expire on Feb. 28. One $500,000 grant subsidizes rent and supportive services for 24 households at English Avenue’s Quest Community Village apartment complex, while another $800,000 grant does the same for 40 other households across town.
In November, HUD announced it would slash 70% of all permanent supportive housing funding and divert it toward short-term, transitional programs with strict work requirements and mandatory drug, alcohol, and mental health treatment. Housing advocates say the shift runs counter to decades of research supporting the Housing First model, which prioritizes stable housing before treatment or employment.
Atlanta homelessness service providers stand to lose nearly $10 million of the roughly $14 million they rely on annually to fund permanent supportive housing, due to HUD’s announced cuts. Initially, Vassell said, Partners for Home and other providers at least understood what HUD was demanding and scrambled to comply. They quickly drafted new grant applications and started exploring ways to convert permanent supportive housing into transitional programs mandating treatment.
But then HUD followed up with the sharply revised grant application process, blindsiding nonprofits nationwide who had come to expect routine grant renewals. Now, Vassell said, providers are caught between a temporary federal court order for HUD to continue the grant funding and HUD’s apparent determination to push ahead with the program overhaul.
A coalition of states sued HUD on Nov. 25, arguing that the agency violated federal law by attempting to impose the changes without proper authority. In December, a federal judge ordered HUD to pause the implementation of the new funding rules and proceed with grant renewals under the existing framework while the case continues.
But HUD asked the court for additional time to respond to the order, which has prolonged the uncertainty on the ground. The agency now has until Jan. 8 to explain to the court why it hasn’t resumed grant renewals.
‘Impossible’ contingency planning
“It is impossible at the moment,” Vassell said, to strategize without clear guidance from HUD or the court. “We’re really just in a holding pattern right now.”
One thing is certain: HUD aims to upend the way the United States houses people experiencing homelessness. “The department remains fully committed to making long overdue reforms to its homelessness assistance programs,” the agency told Atlanta Civic Circle in a Dec. 11 statement.
If HUD ultimately succeeds at cutting permanent supportive housing funding for unhoused people, local services providers would be forced to raise philanthropic dollars to offset the loss. But that’s tough to do without knowing how deep those cuts might be — or when they might come.
“We had started to do some planning around fundraising, figuring out what we might need from the private sector,” Vassell said. “We’re going to proceed with that, but funders are going to want answers first. It’s hard to go to a funder when there are still so many unknowns. They’re going to want some clarity around what they’re funding, and for how long, and what’s the sustainability plan.”
Atlanta City Councilmember Matt Westmoreland serves on the governing board for the local Continuum of Care program. He warned that the stakes for Atlantans served by the program are profound — and that there are limits to how much local governments and nonprofits can absorb the federal cuts.
“The harsh, plain truth is that, whether it’s Atlanta Housing or the city or state or philanthropic community, there is no way we can match what the federal government is spending on permanent supportive housing,” Westmoreland said. “It’s super dark, but we have navigated this storm as well as we could over the last year and will continue to do that in the future.”
It is still a project today. The negro minority is the rat and the ghetto is the maze. They insult us with their actions against us and the thugs grow up calling it their burough or hood like they own it financially but they’re just a statistic ready to chase the grave if they don’t get lucky. The white people are chasing the land and black and brown people are chasing an O.G. title. What are you the O.G. of? White boy Peter’s owned housing development?? Do the math. Black people across the map need to stop working and shopping completely. They need us as their working machine. Let’s put the off switch on it and make them panic as their stock market plummets fast in a matter of a couple of days. This is the answer to a real change for our greater good and our youth to have a better outlook on free thinking power towards generational wealth instead of john d rockefeller’s school asylum system leading to a life of work without thinking stuck in a robotic mechanism of life that recycles around like a merry go round getting more difficult and more difficult and expensive against our spending power. This is DIABOLICAL..
We have to be ever vigilant the new Lynch as the Willie Lynch now come in that disguise of a Charlie Kirk, a Shapiro, a Hannity, an Obama, a Pelosi, a McConnell, a Sharpton, a Jesse Jackson, and so many other racist, white supremacist, and false negro coons , so, let’s be careful. Let’s open our eyes and let’s be forever vigilant. Let’s also be mindful of these envious hating Black people that suffer from Stockholm syndrome thinking against their own people over a place that is supposed to be theirs instead of under some pale pasty btch sitting on capitol hill. They are the most dangerous cause those types of mulatto acting negroes stand with the white neanderthal monkey and reptile blooded immoral honkeys. The newest version of your Bible you christians believe in has over 1100 chapters in it. The slave Bible brought by the white colonizer only had 232 chapters in it. Now do the math on how lost you all are, cause even the colonizer brought bible was a their tool against cultural living and now that same book of deceit has been changed more than baby diapers. Do you realize that those white racists who destroyed black wall street out of jealousy all claimed to be devout christians? They aren’t intimidated by your title cause they own it. Yall be screaming “I rebuke you!!” And then they go home and laugh and mock you. They know it’s their clever lie to keep the backbone of black people broken so no truth ever really surfaces. None of the hieroglyphs speak of no Jesus Christ. It speaks of Heru though and others that relate to people of melanin only. Human is a word created from two words which are “Hue” and “Man” take the “E” out And you get human meaning man of the hue (color). Not white. Whites are mankind. They are only 1/3 of our genetic mixed with animal genetics. They are not natural to our living earth. They steal our energy daily. They are not supposed to be within life. That’s the part they hate to talk about. They run from me cause they know I am the enlightened. If we continue to teach and guide our children in the way of systematic america, the children will become more oppressing and judgemental towards their own cultural selves throughout every generation and the white politician and negro Sambo sellouts will observe how much more comfortable they can be with them witnessing our obedience to a crooked federal ignorance that will add more and more restrictions and laws against the people as they continue to witness the easy compliance of robot minded school puppets who come out of school to become a working class bank bonded product the ruling class occultists and political figures own and will expect to work building political figure’s dream lives while they sit on our backs and get paid for every service we can give to america as owned corporations of theirs. Yes, you are a product, you mother is a product, your sisters and brothers are products, and everyone else that breathes in this world except, Japan, China, Belgium, Luxembourg, Russia, and a few other nations in what is called Africa, which have now freed themselves from the world banking scheme of owned people the council of 13 in america (mostly rothschilds) own for gain as they sit and collect and not live by rules which is what they have given the term ” collectivism”..they even replaced the term “academics” within their robot mind forming school systems with the “collectivism” term so nothing is really guaranteed cause everything the slave masters on capitol hill give you is changeable and they change it whenever it’s seen fit to be switched around to meet only the ruling class’ expectations and satisfaction overall.