July 25, 2025, Washington, D.C. — The National Alliance to End Homelessness condemns yesterday’s harmful Executive Order on homelessness issued by the Trump Administration.
The Order would impose a multitude of harmful, ineffective, and outdated policies and practices for addressing homelessness. Collectively, they aim to defund and dismantle the foundations of homeless response in the United States, while retreating from the federal government’s essential role in supporting communities across the nation.
“This order represents the most harmful policy proposal on homelessness in my career,” said Ann Oliva, CEO of the National Alliance to End Homelessness. “At a time when unaddressed housing costs are driving record numbers of people into homelessness, this order demonstrates a lack of focus and understanding on what our communities — both red and blue — need to address this crisis. Instead, it largely focuses on punishing people for being homeless and denying desperately needed funds to overwhelmed and under resourced frontline workers.”
Attacks on Housing First
Housing First is a thoroughly researched and proven approach to ending people’s homelessness by addressing their most essential need first: the need for housing. With housing as a baseline, people are then best able to benefit from quality supportive services, such as healthcare, addiction treatment, and job training. Withdrawing support for Housing First would signal a retreat from evidence and established best practice, and unnecessarily upend the daily operations of overstretched providers whose work saves lives every single day. This will cause homelessness to increase.
The order adopts pledges made in Project 2025, calling on the Secretary of Health and Human Services and the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development to change grant awards structures and end support for evidence-based policy and programs, including those that adhere to a Housing First approach.
A Call for Forced Institutionalization
This Order calls for reversing policies that prevent the forcible and involuntary commitment of people living with mental illness. This defies a 26-year settled legal precedent in Olmstead v. L.C., the Supreme Court case that guarantees people with disabilities have the right to live in the community with necessary support.
Homelessness does not impact all groups the same way, and people with disabilities have greater vulnerabilities when homeless. Coupled with the recent cuts to Medicaid and the already-scarce access to quality treatment options that both housed and unhoused people need and want, people with disabilities who often experience long-term or recurring homelessness will be treated as disposable. The Alliance calls on the Trump Administration to direct its enormous resources to strengthen the availability and affordability of mental health services, rather than treating it as merely a problem to be hidden from public view.
Eliminating Fundamental Privacy Protections for People Experiencing Homelessness
This Order calls for recipients of federal homelessness funding to collect personal health-related data of people experiencing homelessness and share it with federal government agencies and law enforcement.
This is a fundamental violation of the right to privacy. It follows aggressive moves by this administration to collect the personal healthcare data of scores of Americans as part of its DOGE efforts to locate, detain, and incarcerate under the guise of efficiency. People nationwide have protested this violation of privacy. It is critical that the collective concern over the use of this data to inflict harm includes the rights of people experiencing homelessness.
The Alliance noted that the Order includes several other harmful provisions, including eliminating funding for harm reduction efforts; mandating sobriety; and restricting the use of federal funds as a means to discriminate based on sex and gender.
“This is an SOS moment. The Alliance urges state and local policymakers to consider legislation that would mitigate the harm created by these actions to protect the human and civil rights of people at risk of and/or currently experiencing homelessness,” said Oliva. “We also call upon the provider community to stay faithful to established best practices in the interests of providing the best possible care for the people they serve. Despite these threats, it is essential that we continue to honor our commitments to safely and responsibly serve the needs of people experiencing homelessness.”
About the National Alliance to End Homelessness
The National Alliance to End Homelessness is a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization committed to preventing and ending homelessness in the United States. As a leading voice on the issue of homelessness, the Alliance analyzes policy and develops pragmatic, cost-effective solutions; works collaboratively with the public, private, and nonprofit sectors to build state and local capacity; and provides data and research to policymakers and elected officials in order to inform policy debates and educate the public and opinion leaders nationwide.
PRESS & MEDIA RESOURCES
The Alliance Welcomes Media Inquiries
For media inquiries, please contact:
Libby Miller
lmiller@naeh.org
202-942-8252
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