A sloppy resident sleeps on a dimly lit porch on the stairs of an Austin school. This week, all staff on the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness, which coordinates homelessness policy across the federal government, took leave.
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Small engines to adjust Homeless Policy The entire federal government is effectively closed, with all staff taking administrative leave.
“The irony here is that the US interagency council on homelessness is designed for government efficiency,” said Jeff Olivet, Bod’s latest executive director under President Biden.
Congress created it in 1987, saying it was “to ensure that the federal response to the homelessness is coordinated, efficient and reduce duplication across federal agencies.”
It had fewer than 20 employees and the budget was over $4 million. But President Trump included it in an Presidential Order Last month, some federal bureaucrats were left to the “maximum range” permitted by law.
Legally, homeless institution approval will continue until 2028. However, Doge, a cost-cutting team supervised by Elon Musk, told employees on Monday that he would leave for the staff, according to an email from one employee shared with NPR.
The agency helped cities manage record-breaking homelessness
Part of the agency’s mission is to help states and regions manage homelessness, and Olivet said under his leadership it focuses on a record number of people.
“In communities like Dallas, Phoenix, Chicago, and more, we could see a significant cut, or at least see an increase in unsheld homelessness, even when we saw the rise in overall homelessness in many places,” he said.
The agency also coordinated a focused push to defeat the homeless among veterans, ensuring that they were provided with housing and health care. Over the decade, homelessness among veterans has declined more than half, Olivet said.
“The US interagency council on homelessness is essential to shaping effective policies to end homelessness,” Anne Oliva, CEO of the National Alliance to End Homelessness, said in a statement.
However, the Trump administration plans to take a dramatically different approach to the issue.
Shutting down agents makes it easier for Trump to change his homeless policy
For decades, since the first Bush administration, people have first won housing and then have bipartisan support to provide the necessary mental and addiction treatment. However, the steady rise in the homelessness rate has led to a growing conservative backlash.
During Trump’s first term, he Appointer They tried to pilot the US Inter-Provincial Council on Homelessness towards treatment options rather than permanent housing. However, the executive director is the only political appointee in a small agency, and everything else is career staff.
“He was actually against the present,” said Devon Kurtz of the Cicero Institute, a conservative think tank. “In the end, the inertia of it first continued to be a kind of mouthpiece for a home.”
Kurtz supports a dramatic shift from housing initial policy, and believes it could happen more easily without homeless institutions.
It is not clear whether this move will have a legal challenge. Congressional Democrats I opposed to The Trump agency’s target calls it “meaningless.”
“When housing costs and homelessness are on the rise historically, we need all the deck-on approaches to ensure that every American has a safe and stable place to rest their heads at night,” Missouri Sen. Emmanuel Cleaver II said in a statement to NPR. “Unfortunately, [agency]federal housing programs and staff, and the president’s turbulent tariff damage cuts, only exacerbate the country’s housing and homelessness crisis. ”
