When Someone Lobs a Grenade At You… You Throw It Back - Letters to the Housed by Paul Asplund
The Trump Administration's attack on Housing First threatens to put thousands of LA County residents back on the streets
August 5, 2025 | By Paul Asplund
A recent email from the Greater LA Coalition to End Homelessness went into some detail about the Trump Administration's July 24th Executive Order. In the short term, it's a threat to people already housed through supportive housing programs, and unless we find other funding sources, it will end their subsidies. There's a good chance people will become unhoused again, which is the worst possible outcome.
Landlords need to be paid, and until/unless we find ways to keep paying them, leases will end, evictions will rise, and the cycle of poverty, homelessness, and inability to qualify for housing starts all over again. This is dire and the imminent danger to thousands of Angelenos can't be stressed enough.
What We're Losing: Housing First Explained
For over two decades, "Housing First" has been the standard for ending homelessness. The concept is straightforward: get people housed immediately, then provide the support services they need. It's based on the simple recognition that it's nearly impossible to address mental health issues, addiction, or job training when you're sleeping on the street.
Housing First policies have strong research support and have been implemented across the political spectrum because they work. Cities like Alexandria, Virginia, have seen an 11% decrease in homelessness using these approaches. The model acknowledges that people don't have to be "housing ready" or sober to deserve a roof over their heads.
The Executive Order throws this out the window, ending support for "housing first" policies that it claims "deprioritize accountability and fail to promote treatment, recovery, and self-sufficiency."
This order means that treatment for substance use disorder and mental health needs will take priority. I have a personal history here since the county where I lived required me to attend drug treatment to re-qualify for my GA and SNAP benefits. They did not, however require that I remain sober to keep the benefits (I did, thankfully). This is a critical difference and right now we don't know what the rules following this EO will require.
It took me six years of attending recovery meetings before I got and stayed sober. It also took me nearly two years before I could hold a decent job. Sobriety can be elusive, and abstinence programs like the one I follow don't work for everyone. 100 years into treating Substance Use Disorders, we still don't know how to get everyone sober who needs it.
What we do know is that stable housing makes a huge difference.
A Three-Stage Assault on Homeless Services
As detailed in the GLACH.org email, based on information from homeless services organizations, this policy shift will likely unfold in three devastating stages:
Stage 1: Legal Challenges and Immediate Funding Threats
Legal experts expect challenges to the administration's attempt to tie federal funding to enforcement of criminal statutes under local jurisdiction. But while courts sort this out, uncertainty alone will disrupt services. Providers are already scrambling to understand whether their current programs will qualify for continued funding.
Stage 2: Complete Overhaul of Federal Homelessness Funding
The Department of Housing and Urban Development has already signaled massive changes to how homelessness grants are awarded. The new criteria prioritizes "reducing encampments and unsheltered homelessness," "requiring treatment for substance abuse and mental health," and "encouraging self-sufficiency" over housing stability.
This isn't just a tweak—it's a complete reversal of evidence-based policy. Current federal funding sustains thousands of supportive housing units that would lose funding under this scheme, potentially forcing residents back onto the streets.
Stage 3: Local Scramble for Alternative Funding
Here in LA County, we're looking at massive numbers. The Los Angeles Continuum of Care received over $220 million in FY 2024 from HUD, part of the over $800 million annually that LAHSA coordinates and manages for homelessness services.
We may be able to shuffle funding—redirecting HHAP, Measure A, and general revenue to shore up housing programs while using any remaining federal dollars for outreach and treatment services that might still qualify. But this will require lightning-fast legislative action and will still leave us with a massive funding gap.
The Human Cost of Ideological Warfare
Let's be clear about what "shifting homeless individuals into long-term institutional settings" actually means. We tried this before. During the 1980s, the Reagan administration's approach to mental health led to what experts now recognize as a policy disaster.
When deinstitutionalization happened without adequate community support, it contributed significantly to homelessness, with studies showing 27-36% of discharged patients becoming homeless. While current research shows that 67% of unhoused people do have mental health disorders, the best predictor of homelessness isn't mental illness—it's the lack of affordable housing in an area.
The cruel irony? Trump's order comes as homelessness reached record levels, with more than 770,000 people experiencing homelessness in 2024, an 18% increase from 2023. Instead of building on what works, we're returning to policies that created the crisis in the first place.
Throwing the Grenade Back: Our Response
Here's what we need to do immediately:
Legislatively: Push for fast-track approval to redirect state and local funding streams to maintain housing programs. LAHSA and county officials need emergency authorization to shuffle money between programs.
Legally: Support the inevitable court challenges while documenting the harm this order causes to people currently housed through federal programs.
Strategically: Identify which current outreach and treatment programs might still qualify for federal funding under the new criteria, and maximize those opportunities.
But here's the deeper truth: this crisis confirms what those of us working on the streets have known all along. Real solutions to homelessness don't come from Washington—they come from neighborhoods.
The Real Solution: Community-Based Response
Every day I see the most effective homelessness interventions happening at the community level. It's volunteer organizations providing essential services. It's faith communities opening their doors. It's neighbors who learn the names of people living on their streets and figure out what they actually need.
These aren't the organizations getting the big federal grants. They're too small, too grassroots, too focused on relationships instead of metrics. But they're also the ones achieving real transformations because they understand something Washington never will: ending homelessness is about rebuilding human connection, not managing case loads.
The federal government can build housing and fund programs, but it can't rebuild someone's sense of dignity or help them believe they belong in our community. That happens one relationship at a time, one conversation at a time, one act of radical hospitality at a time.
In Los Angeles County, we have $783 million in homeless services spending planned for this fiscal year. Even if we lose every federal dollar, we still have the resources to make a difference—if we direct them toward community-based solutions that actually work.
Taking Action Now
The Trump administration may have thrown a grenade into our homeless services system, but they've also given us an opportunity. An opportunity to stop depending on federal bureaucracy and start building the neighborhood-level responses that will actually end homelessness.
We know how to do this. We've always known how. We just need to stop waiting for permission from Washington and start taking care of our neighbors ourselves.
The time is now. The community is us. Let's get to work.
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Paul Asplund is the founder of Second Grace LA and has worked in homeless services in San Francisco and Los Angeles for over a decade. Learn more at paulasplund.com] and secondgrace.la.
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Links
- Greater LA Coalition to End Homelessness
- Executive Order: Ending Crime and Disorder
- LAHSA - Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority
References:
HUD Notification to CoCs - July 3, 2025 announcement (referenced in the GLACH email, not publicly available as a standalone document)
LA County CoC Funding Data - FY 2024 funding amounts (data from GLACH email analysis, not available as a public URL)
House Appropriations Subcommittee Report - (Referenced in GLACH email, specific report URL not publicly available)