The Metro Government of Nashville and Davidson County joined a lawsuit against the Trump administration’s Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) over the agency’s overhaul of the Continuum of Care (CoC) Program, its primary federal program for funding homelessness services.
In November, HUD announced $3.9 billion in CoC grant funding and major policy changes intended to increase competition, expand transitional housing, and emphasize self-sufficiency.
HUD outlined a series of program changes, including a requirement that 70 percent of projects compete for funding, expanded emphasis on transitional housing and supportive services, and closer alignment with U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) approaches to treatment and recovery.
Under the Biden administration, HUD Secretary Scott Turner said roughly 90 percent of CoC awards funded the failed “Housing First” ideology, which encouraged dependence on government handouts while neglecting the root causes of homelessness, and that transitional housing never received more than 2 percent of CoC funding.
Metro Nashville joined a lawsuit filed by a coalition of local governments and nonprofits in the U.S. District Court in Rhode Island last week, challenging HUD’s reforms to the CoC program.
The 85-page complaint argues that HUD’s rescission of the planned FY 2024-2025 funding framework and its replacement with a new FY 2025 competition will leave homelessness-response programs without funding, force service reductions or closures, and put residents at risk of returning to homelessness.
Metro Nashville’s CoC received approximately $11.8 million in FY 2024 funding, according to the complaint.
Nashville Mayor Freddie O’Connell called HUD’s reforms to the CoC program “unprecedented, cruel, and unlawful,” adding that the “Trump-Vance administration…is destabilizing local systems, breaking commitments communities rely on.”
Turner said the reforms to the CoC program are in accordance with the president’s executive order titled “Ending Crime and Disorder on America’s Streets,” which directs HUD to restore accountability to homelessness programs and promote treatment, recovery, and self-sufficiency.
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Kaitlin Housler is a reporter at The Tennessee Star and The Star News Network. Follow Kaitlin on X / Twitter.
Background Photo “HUD Building” by ajay_suresh. CC BY 2.0.
