Amid a new set of Trump administration rules seeking to limit federal funding for long-term homelessness programs, Tucson is taking a dual approach.
The city has joined a national legal complaint asking a judge to declare the funding restrictions disruptive and discriminatory, but is also working to help local providers do their best in the application process due later this summer
“This year’s competition remains challenging,” Tucson Community Housing and Development Director Jason Thorpe said at a city council study session Tuesday. “The new federal requirements will require our Continuum of Care (the local body that helps disburse and oversee homelessness programming) to implement additional participant requirements and shift a substantial portion of funding away from permanent housing.”
On June 1, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development released guidelines for how it would fund local programs to tackle homelessness in 2027 and 2028. The key changes include a focus on moving funding away from permanent supportive housing to shorter term housing and in favor of localities that more aggressively police homelessness.
“The ‘housing first’ experiment failed Americans by warehousing the vulnerable without results,” Department of Housing head Scott Turner said in a news release announcing the new priorities.
The administration also says housing programs must align with federal orders that seek to remove protections for people who don’t align with the Trump administration’s position on gender identity,
Tucson joined Boston, Cambridge and several nonprofit advocacy groups in a legal complaint against the restrictions proposed by HUD on what programs it is willing to fund.
“This new NOFO [Notice of Funding Opportunity] will cause devastating and irreparable harms to Plaintiffs and the Plaintiff associationsí members, to communitiesí efforts to address homelessness, and to the people who rely on CoC-funded programs for housing and other support,” says the legal challenge.
This is the second time in less than a year that the Trump administration has tried to change which local programs can receive federal homelessness funds. One local administrator told a researcher that watching policies that could push people back into homelessness was “like a grim march toward death.”
Tucson was part of one of the lawsuits that, for now, stalled the implementation of that first effort.
Still, the city was also encouraging providers to do their best to submit applications for this round of funding to the federal government that would meet the new standards.
“We’re working closely with providers to align with local priorities, and position our community to remain competitive for federal funding under these new models,” Thorpe told the mayor and council.
That could include voluntarily reallocating money from transitional housing to rapid rehousing programs, which may be looked at more favorably by the Trump administration.
“Through reallocation, the CoC can create new projects that are aligned with HUD’s goals, by eliminating projects that are underperforming or are more appropriately funded from other sources,” an informational document for providers said.
Under previous administrations, the federal government generally renewed nearly 90% of a locality’s ongoing projects, recognizing that stability and continuity were key in working with vulnerable homeless communities.
Under the Trump administration’s latest approach, only 60% of the funding going to providers and local programs would be protected. “Forty percent is subject to national competition,” Thorpe said.
One change in the Trump administration’s housing approach shifts more money toward domestic violence projects, which could benefit some vulnerable Tucson families. Right now, said Thorpe, there are 800 households fleeing domestic violence on the housing priority list, far exceeding available provider capacity.
“This competition presents a meaningful opportunity to expand resources for those households,” Thorpe said.
The Trump administration’s new funding requirements are part of a broader push toward policies that favor using law enforcement engagement and arrest to remove people from the streets, even as there remains a national housing shortage.
That tension has been reflected in communities across the country since the Grants Pass court case, that allows cities to punish people for sleeping outside.
Tucson operates with a housing-first policy that emphasises helping people access housing without first reaching sobriety or other milestones.
At the same time, the city has passed a series of trespassing ordinances that have made it illegal to camp in washes and city parks. The city has also continued to do street outreach under its Safe City initiative, which aims to link people with help by sending outreach workers, along with law enforcement, when clearing encampments or charging people who are sleeping outside.
Tucson Parks and Recreation Director Lara Hamwey spoke at Tuesday’s meeting about a new department unit , Parks Assistance and Community Engagement, or PACE, designed to respond to homeless encampment reports.
That work will include engaging with people in parks to help them access services, serving as a liaison to community and neighborhood groups near city parks, and contacting Tucson police when people are found camping in city parks.
“Every situation that occurs within a park is going to be a little different,” Hamwey said. “The whole goal of establishing a unit like this is to allow us to have a concentrated response plan.”
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