CEO Corner:
Week of July 7

Last week the Alliance was joined by nearly 2,000 of you at the 2025 National Conference on Ending Homelessness in Washington, D.C. As always, it was powerful to be in community with so many people fighting the same fight. Nearly half of the attendees joined us for the first time, which was incredible to witness.

Something shifted since the last time we gathered in March: people are ready to strategize and push back against the harmful policies being adopted and proposed by the Administration and Congress. We hope that everyone left D.C. ready to take action back home.

Budget Update

Reconciliation

Last week, Congress passed the President’s “Mega bill” which will shrink federal resources for healthcare, including an estimated $1.1 trillion cut to Medicaid. It will also expand work requirements, increasing bureaucratic hurdles and red tape for families, and placing even more households at risk of losing the healthcare coverage they need.

In addition, millions of people, including children, older adults, and veterans, will lose food assistance at a time when food costs are increasing. Most disappointingly, the hard-fought exemptions on work requirements for people experiencing homelessness were also removed in the final bill.

Undoubtedly, implementation of this bill will have disproportionately harmful outcomes for people of color and other marginalized communities. The Alliance plans to work closely with states as they consider implementation so that harm for people experiencing homelessness is minimized to the extent possible.

FY2026 Appropriations

There is a lot of confusion between the bill that Congress passed last week and annual funding for HUD’s affordable housing and homelessness programs. Budget reconciliation bills, like the President’s “Mega bill”, generally deal with taxes and mandatory spending programs like Medicare, Medicaid, and SNAP. HUD’s programs are funded through the annual appropriations process.

The devastating and sweeping proposals to HUD’s homeless assistance grants programs included in the President’s FY2026 budget request were not included in the reconciliation bill passed last week.; they are instead considered by House and Senate Transportation-Housing and Urban Development (THUD) subcommittees, which determine HUD’s annual budget. It is important to remember that Congress is not under any obligation to adopt any of the proposals included in the President’s request, which are strongly opposed by the Alliance and have raised bipartisan concern in Congress as well.

THUD subcommittees are hard at work developing the initial bills for HUD; the House is expected to have its initial markup process next week. This will give us the first glimpse of what’s on the table.

The fight to influence the FY2026 appropriations process is just beginning. Use the Alliance’s materials and tools to contact your congressional members often about why the President’s proposals would be harmful to people experiencing homelessness and what a more reasonable budget proposal would be. You could also start planning for opportunities to advocate when your members are at home for summer recess.

FY2025 CoC Program Competition

In recent weeks, the Alliance was concerned about the possibility of a new Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO) for FY2025, disregarding the two-year NOFO process that was authorized by Congress and announced by HUD in FY2024. Late last week, HUD sent out a communication to CoCs and recipients of CoC funding notifying them that HUD is, in fact, planning to publish a NOFO for FY2025 CoC Program awards that will be focused on “treatment and recovery, reducing unsheltered homelessness, reducing returns to homelessness, and increasing the earned income of participants.”

While it is now confirmed that HUD intends to run a new competition for FY2025 funds, we must continue to pressure Congress (especially THUD subcommittee leaders in the House and Senate) to urge HUD to honor the 2-year NOFO that Congress authorized in FY2024. Any alternative — particularly a competition with significant changes — would be disruptive to CoCs who already went through a 2-year planning process and therefore do not have the capacity for a new competitive process.

The Alliance is watching this development closely, and will continue to keep the field abreast of developments.

Despite the ongoing challenges of this moment, I hope that everyone who was able to attend this year’s conference was able to return to their communities energized by the sessions they attended and the people they connected with. (I know I am.)

At a moment like this, when we need all hand on deck, I am incredibly grateful for this field’s passion and dedication.

On behalf of the entire staff at the Alliance, thanks for all that you do.