From Baltimore to California, Communities Are Building Stability Despite Funding Threats
Funding delays caused by President Donald Trump’s attempts to change the rules for homeless services and affordable housing grants haven’t stopped developers from investing in permanent supportive housing.
Since taking office, Trump’s administration has sought to withhold billions in previously awarded funding for groups with whom he disagrees. For instance, the Department of Housing and Urban Development attempted to change the criteria to access nearly $4 billion in Continuum of Care Grant program funds, the largest single source of funding for homeless services and supportive housing. Some of the criteria changes include pivoting away from Housing First policies and accepting a cap of expenditures on supportive housing at 30% of the total award, down from 90%.
Advocates estimated this change alone would result in about 170,000 people losing their homes. A federal judge in Rhode Island has temporarily blocked the administration from making these changes, although the litigation remains ongoing.
Developers Double Down as Federal Policy Shifts
Despite the federal government’s new attitude toward Housing First and PSH, developers across the country are continuing to build supportive housing units to help people who are homeless find the stability they deserve.
In Baltimore, Episcopal Housing Corporation and Health Care for the Homeless have partnered to create Sojourner Place at Park, a 42-unit affordable housing building that includes 28 units of permanent supportive housing. Sojourner Place at Park is an adaptive reuse project that will occupy an entire city block and include the reuse of a former office building.
The building is in downtown Baltimore near the city’s mass transit system. It is also in a neighborhood where a lot of other redevelopment is happening, according to Shannon Snow, Episcopal Housing Corporation’s projects director. That will give residents access to jobs, healthy food, and other neighborhood amenities, she added.
Kevin Lindamood, CEO of Health Care for the Homeless, told Invisible People that the building will also include a slate of services to address the needs of Baltimore’s chronically homeless population, including therapy, case management, and other health care services.
“We’ve got a housing problem, and until we solve that housing problem, we need to figure out how to leverage whatever tools we can to intervene in the most effective way that we can,” Lindamood said.
Dan McCarthy, executive director of Episcopal Housing Corporation, told Invisible People that his organization will continue investing in permanent supportive housing, even if the federal government won’t participate.
“Everyone has a moral obligation to end homelessness,” McCarthy said.
Housing Needs Are Growing and So Are Local Solutions
Several other developers across the U.S. are also building permanent supportive housing units for people exiting homelessness. These efforts are happening at a time when homelessness is rapidly increasing across the country. More than 771,000 people were counted as homeless in 2024, an 18% increase from the previous year, according to federal data.
Experts expect that number to climb higher in 2025 as the rising cost of living and shortage of affordable housing force many low-income households to make tough choices between paying rent and other necessities.
In Oregon, the Mid-Columbia Community Action Council partnered with Mid-Columbia Center for Living to convert a transitional shelter into 21 permanent supportive housing units. Construction has already begun, and the first residents are expected to move in in February 2026.
The building will serve the local chronically homeless population and includes supportive services such as employment assistance, health care, and independent living skills. Current shelter guests are most likely to live in the new units, meaning the project will displace no one.
“The changes MCCAC has now successfully made to The Annex mean vulnerable people will have not only a long-term housing option but will have the support of MCCAC and MCCFL staff on-site to make that housing setting successful,” Al Barton, MCCF executive director, said in a statement.
Communities Find Ways to Build, Even Without Washington
Developers in Butte, Montana, are also working to convert a building located above an old Motel 6 into a $2.2 million permanent supportive housing complex. The project follows the completion of a study that identified the need for 20 permanent supportive housing units in the city, according to local news station KULR8.
Funding for the project came from the Federal Home Loan Bank, the local Urban Renewal Authority, and the HOME-American Rescue Plan Act, according to the report. The building will include services that help people overcome complex behavioral health challenges.
The first guests are expected to move in by July 2026.
The City of Riverside, California, is expected to approve a $20.1 million Homekey+ financing agreement with the state to convert an old Quality Inn motel into a 114-unit permanent supportive housing building, Rain Cross Gazette reported.
The building will be renovated by Riverside Housing Development Corporation, an affordable housing developer that has been in operation since 1991. The developer has also secured 94 project-based vouchers, which will help subsidize rent for most of the people living in the building, The Gazette reported. There will also be six case managers who work at the building.
How You Can Help
Now is not the time to be silent about homelessness in the United States or anywhere else. Unhoused people deserve safe and sanitary housing just as much as those who can afford rent or a mortgage.
Poverty and homelessness are both policy choices, not personal failures. That’s why we need you to contact your officials and tell them you support legislation that:
- Streamlines the development of affordable housing
- Reduces barriers for people experiencing homelessness to enter permanent housing
- Bolsters government response to homelessness
Together, we can end homelessness.