While I wasn’t planning to write a CEO Corner this week, we got some good news yesterday afternoon worth sharing. The U.S. District Court for the District of Rhode Island ruled that the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and HUD Secretary Scott Turner violated the law with both FY 2025 November and December Notices of Funding Opportunities (NOFOs).
Many of you may be wondering what this even means or why it matters since Congress mandated all FY 2025 renewal grants be awarded on a noncompetitive basis.
In short: We were granted summary judgment in part – winning on our biggest claims – and denied in part. To summarize the ruling plainly, the Court:
- Decided that HUD did not properly think through the impact that the 2025 CoC NOFOs’ sudden changes would have on communities, programs, and most notably, formerly homeless people.
- Ruled that both 2025 CoC NOFOs were unlawful because HUD’s actions were broke the law that requires government agencies to engage in reasoned decision-making and because HUD replaced the FY24-25 NOFO too late.
- Declined to put a permanent stop to HUD trying to make the same changes in the future because the court thought it was unclear whether HUD would actually try to do that.
- Informed us we could file a separate action to challenge the FY 2026 NOFO so as to not prolong the resolution of the 2025 CoC NOFO case.
I encourage each of you to read the ruling in full so you can see exactly what the judge said about HUD’s actions related to the 2025 CoC NOFOs. However, it is worth calling out this particular statement included in the ruling:
Overall, the actions undertaken by HUD in attempting to hastily eliminate its Housing First approach serve as the hallmark of unreasoned decision making and HUD’s attempt to retroactively backfill its impulsive decision making lacks a rational connection between any facts that it could have found and the choices that it ultimately made in issuing these NOFOs.
This marks the third time the Alliance and its coalition of nonprofits and local governments has opposed the Trump administration in court and won.
As for next steps, please know that the Alliance remains deeply concerned about the legality of the FY 2026 CoC Program NOFO and is weighing all of our options. As we navigate what comes next with regard to future litigation, it is important to continue to reach out regularly to your members of Congress. Share your concerns about the FY2026 CoC NOFO and, importantly, make sure they know if you are still waiting for an executed grant agreement and access to funds for FY2025 (especially if your grant has already expired). Be sure that you are signed up for our advocacy alerts as additional resources and materials to assist you in your outreach will be coming soon!
As we look forward to welcoming hundreds of you to our National Conference on Ending Homelessness, I hope this serves as a reminder that we can fight back and win as long as we do it together.
“Strong movements don’t need strong leaders they need strong strategies.” – Loretta J. Ross
Take care and see you in DC next week,
Ann
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