CEO Corner:
Week of March 31

In this week’s CEO Corner, I want to focus on three items of importance: acknowledging that communities are being forced to make really hard choices; explaining what last week’s Executive Order about Washington, D.C. indicates about the Administration’s approach on homelessness; and providing insight on why we think strong governance, including legal representation, is critical moving forward.

Impact of Federal Updates on the Local Level

At the forefront of our mind at the Alliance is the keen awareness that front line service providers, Continuum of Care (CoC) leadership and others working to end homelessness are in an incredibly stressful and challenging position. We know your work requires you to prioritize your time and energy to the most important and impactful activities for people experiencing homelessness in your community.

The Alliance is consistently evaluating what, how, and when we communicate to the field, including advocacy efforts. Our intent is to provide you with the right information that you can use to make the best decisions you can locally under trying circumstances.

The Alliance works in service to our community and your feedback is important to us. When you reach out to me or others on the team, we take your input seriously and do our best to balance the different ideas and feedback to meet each moment.

If there are items that the Alliance hasn’t covered in our email updates, or overall questions you have on federal changes that will impact your work, please email info@naeh.org with “FIELD INFO REQUEST” as the subject line. Although — depending on the volume — we may not be able to respond to every message or to specific technical questions, we will use any information/questions you submit to make our messaging as responsive to local needs as possible.

The Importance of Good Governance in Challenging Times

When we think about governance in the context of homeless services, we often think about Boards of Directors or CoC Boards. They are important decision-making bodies that need skilled and informed members and advisors to help navigate through challenges.

The Alliance has recently received questions about our recommendation to consult legal counsel in relation to the 2024 CoC Program grant agreements. We know that not every organization has access to legal counsel. We also understand that there is no real alternative but to sign grant agreements, especially when rents and salaries are due or overdue. This is especially true for renewal grants under the CoC program. We feel strongly that once grantees sign their CoC renewal grant agreements, they should seek legal counsel about what risks the new language creates (and doesn’t create). Since the Alliance cannot provide any legal advice, lawyers in your area will have a clearer idea of the specific impact on your organization and your community.

Legal counsel does not necessarily mean hiring a lawyer: it could mean talking with a local law school or legal aid group, recruiting a lawyer for your Board of Directors, or beginning the search for pro bono legal assistance for the CoC as a whole.

This type of legal assistance is critically important to creating strong governance structures that can help systems withstand unforeseen legal challenges. It can give you backing and support if your compliance with new grant terms is flagged by HUD.

None of us know how the new requirements included in the 2024 grant agreement will play out, but we can take a cue from what is happening at other federal agencies in order to be as prepared as possible for the future. Adding legal capacity to your governance structures — and filling any other key gaps you may have in those structures — seems advisable in this moment of uncertainty.

Executive Order 

On March 28, the White House released an Executive Order (EO) entitled “Making The District Of Columbia Safe and Beautiful.”

If you don’t live in the District, you may be wondering… what does this have to do with my community?

The EO includes, among many other items, direction to the Secretary of the Interior to remove or clean “all homeless or vagrant encampments and graffiti on Federal land within the District of Columbia subject to the National Park Service’s jurisdiction, to the maximum extent permitted by law.”

While this EO is limited to federal land inside the nation’s capital, it signals how the Administration is thinking about unsheltered homelessness. And when considered together with other actions already taken or planned by the administration, it creates an even clearer picture of their vision of homelessness.

The clause quoted above is in Section 4 of the EO, and lumps together human beings with graffiti that should be removed from public view. At no time does the EO acknowledge the humans living unsheltered in these areas or indicate that people should be offered shelter, housing or services as part of the “beautification” process. This EO is yet another action by the administration that will only make it harder for people experiencing homelessness in the District of Columbia and across the country.

This EO can help us understand and plan for what may be coming to other states and communities in the coming months, particularly at a time when an increasing number of communities embrace carceral approaches to unsheltered homelessness, despite a wealth of evidence that this approach does not end people’s homelessness.

We are so grateful for your attention, dedication, and work. We trust that you will do what you can, when you can, with the information and guidance we provide through our regular communications.

Take Care,
Ann Oliva