Trump’s ‘Housing First’ Overhaul Angers Homeless Advocacy Industry

NPR recently reported that the Trump administration is planning to radically overhaul the longstanding ‘Housing First’ approach to homelessness, which “prioritized getting people into permanent housing and then offering them treatment.” While overall government funding would increase from $3.6B to $3.9B, support for long-term housing would be sharply reduced, with those funds reallocated “toward transitional housing that requires work and addiction treatment.” Specifically, this would mean up to 18 months of temporary housing.

Not everyone is pleased. In a statement, Ann Oliva, CEO of the National Alliance to End Homelessness, warned:

“HUD’s new funding priorities slam the door on [the homeless], their providers, and their communities. Make no mistake: homelessness will only increase because of this reckless and irresponsible decision.”

The homeless advocacy industry, much like professional gay rights organizations, is structured to be self-perpetuating. In 2023, according to ProPublica, the National Alliance to End Homelessness paid Oliva just over $200K, with revenues of approximately $7.6M and net assets over $28M. They have been a tax-exempt organization since 1983, over 40 years, with no end to their mission in sight. With billions at stake, advocacy nonprofits have a perverse incentive to never truly solve the problem they feign to champion, only to keep private donations and federal, state, and local grants coming at all costs.

Money alone, though, cannot solve this societal challenge. Including housing funds, the federal government will spend just over $10B in 2025 for homelessness assistance programs. According to the National Homeless Information Project, state and local governments spend billions more. California, despite spending $37B on housing and homelessness-related programs since 2019, still accounts for 44% of the country’s chronically homeless population, and has seen that population continue to increase each year. From 2022 to 2023 it climbed 5.7%, and in 2024 another 3%.

Here in Atlanta, according to the 2024 Partners for HOME ‘Point-in-Time’ count, there were 2,867 homeless in the city. That same year, the City of Atlanta announced $60 million towards housing, a 10-fold increase, and nearly $21,000 per person. With the average monthly rent for a 1-bedroom apartment at $1,606, that funding covers a year’s rent for all of them, yet the problem continues unabated.

Additionally, while homeless advocates relentlessly push the false narrative that we are all ‘one paycheck away’ from the streets, in reality most already there are struggling with mental health and/or substance abuse issues. According to a systematic review and meta-analysis by the National Institutes for Health, there is an 80.2% overall lifetime prevalence of mental health disorders in the homeless population. The University of California San Francisco reported that 65% have regularly used illicit drugs. In the Midtown area of Atlanta, it is not uncommon to see drugged out bodies lying on sidewalks and schizophrenics in Piedmont Park screaming at no one, scenes repeated throughout the country.

Those living on the streets deserve the utmost compassion. Too many, though, are left to fend for themselves without receiving the necessary treatment(s) in support of any meaningful chance of permanently getting off them. Too often, governments and advocacy groups paper over the problem with public virtue-signaling, such as San Francisco once giving the homeless free shopping carts or Atlanta activists recently handing out blankets, food and clothes, symbolic acts designed only to make street life more comfortable, not provide constructive solutions to resolve the issue at hand.

Trump’s commonsense approach, tackling underlying causes and providing housing for up to 18 months to get sober or seek other recovery or mental illness treatment, is the right one toward effectively addressing this crisis. If only homeless advocates could accept outliving their usefulness.