This afternoon, I’m writing to you from the final day of the Alliance’s 2025 Innovations and Solutions for Ending Unsheltered Homelessness Conference in Los Angeles. With so much uncertainty in this moment, it felt right on time to be in community with so many of you in the field. This conference was a needed reminder of all the fantastic work being accomplished even when things are hard, a good reminder of what we are fighting for.
But the developments coming out of Washington, D.C. were an undercurrent throughout the conference. The absence of federal staff at this conference was a reminder of the threats to the federal workforce: to the dedicated career staff working to ensure housing opportunities for all, and especially for our colleagues at HUD working to end homelessness.
If carried out at the scale reported, proposed reductions in the HUD workforce will have a major impact on our work. HUD staffing cuts will significantly delay activities that help communities and providers across the country through the normal course of business — things like supporting community grantees, ensuring funding is well spent, and answering technical questions.
And as the conference got underway, word came out that the Department had abruptly discontinued an unprecedented number of contracts for HUD Technical Assistance (TA), citing the promotion of diversity, equity, and inclusion as the reason.
The Impact
Cancelling technical assistance contracts will have adverse impacts on efforts to end homelessness in communities that receive help with program design, compliance, governance, and many other important aspects of our work.
Losing technical assistance will especially impact efforts to address youth homelessness and unsheltered and rural homelessness, with a disproportionate impact on smaller CoCs and Balance of State CoCs whose only resource for capacity building support has come in the form of HUD TA.
At this week’s conference, we prioritized creating spaces for the field to express concerns and questions, so we as the Alliance can better assess the ways in which we can and should support the field. We are working every day to assess the situation, monitor the ongoing stream of developments, and actively strategize on a response.
The Road Ahead
Despite the shifting challenges that seem to greet us each week (or day), I know that you remain firmly committed to the mission to end homelessness in your communities and across this nation. It’s a job that has always required deep reserves of grit and adaptability to get us through uncertain times.
I don’t know what tomorrow will bring, but I do know that the team here at the Alliance will be here to walk alongside you. And we hope that you will join us.
In the meantime, please take some time this weekend to rest up and take care of yourselves. You need and deserve it.
Ann Oliva
CEO, National Alliance to End Homelessness