April 23, 2025
President Joe Biden launched the program in 2021 and allocated roughly $5 billion
The Trump administration advises organizations that fight homelessness to brace for impact as cuts are expected to a federal program paying rent for tens of thousands of families. Funding from the pandemic-era American Rescue Plan Act is running out of money and expected to be depleted by the end of next year, according to a letter from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, obtained by the Associated Press.
President Joe Biden launched the program in 2021, and roughly $5 billion was allocated to help people get out of homelessness or avoid it. The expectation was that the money would last at least a decade. However, with the rising cost of rents, the $5 billion will run out faster than expected, leaving vulnerable communities on the brink of homelessness.
The program’s funding helps more than 60,000 families and individuals who are escaping homelessness, domestic violence, and, in some cases, are running out of money.
“To have it stop would completely upend all the progress that they’ve made, and then you multiply that by 59,000 households,” Sonya Acosta, a policy analyst at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, told the AP.
Why Cuts To Fight Homelessness Are Likely
HUD reportedly sent letters to groups dispersing the funding, advising them to manage their EHV program “with the expectation that no additional funding from HUD will be forthcoming.”
The program’s future rests in Congress’s hands, but with a Republican majority in both chambers dead set on slashing the federal budget to afford tax cuts for the wealthy, more funding is highly unlikely.
“We’ve been told it’s very much going to be an uphill fight,” said Kim Johnson, the public policy manager at the National Low Income Housing Coalition.
Poverty, lack of affordable housing, and inadequate services are significant contributing factors to the homelessness crisis.
Around 23 out of every 10,000 Americans — or 771,480 people — experienced homelessness in January 2024, according to the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) annual point-in-time report. That’s an 18% increase from the same report in 2023.
Over 240,000 homeless Americans, or 31.6% of the homeless population, identified as Black, African American, or African in 2024, the largest population of unhoused people, according to USA Facts.
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