Left: Donald Trump speaks at the annual Road to Majority conference in Washington, DC, in June 2024 (Allison Bailey/NurPhoto via AP). Right: U.S. District Judge Mary S. McElroy (District of Rhode Island).
The Trump administration got hit with a lawsuit last week accusing it of “unlawfully” tying federal housing grants for the homeless to places that comply with the president“s “partisan agenda,” including immigration enforcement and civil rights matters for transgender and non-binary people.
On Friday, U.S. District Judge Mary S. McElroy in Rhode Island granted a temporary restraining order to halt the allegedly illegal restrictions on federal housing funding through the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s “Continuum of Care (CoC) Builds” program, according to court records.
“The order ensures that providers and communities will not be barred from competing for lifesaving housing resources simply because they are located in jurisdictions that don’t adopt the administration’s ideological agenda, while the litigation continues,” wrote the National Alliance to End Homelessness, which is suing the government with the Women’s Development Corporation, in a statement Friday after the TRO was handed down.
“For decades, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD)’s homelessness programs have supported states, localities, and service providers in building permanent supportive housing to reduce homelessness,” the statement said. “The Trump-Vance administration’s sudden addition of extreme, new grant criteria sought to deny funding to entire communities based on political considerations, including whether jurisdictions support sanctuary protections, harm reduction practices, or inclusive policies for transgender people.”
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In their complaint, lawyers for the groups — which are being represented by Democracy Forward, National Homelessness Law Center, Lawyers’ Committee for Rhode Island, and ACLU Foundation of Rhode Island — describe how Congress appropriated $75 million for HUD to build permanent supportive housing for people in need. The department identified “qualified projects” and was “prepared to award these essential funds” through federal grants before it allegedly “reversed course” last week as the grants are set to expire on Sept. 30.
“I think that it’s unfortunate that we’re here on these things that are done so last minute by these agencies,” McElroy, who was appointed by Trump in 2019, said Friday during a hearing held over Zoom, according to Reuters.
The government is allegedly seeking new applicants based on “newly announced criteria,” according to the groups’ lawsuit, which was filed Thursday.
“Under these new criteria, HUD will only award those funds for projects in jurisdictions aligned with the Administration’s broader social policy views and to applicants that will commit to them,” the complaint says. “And HUD is rushing the funds out the door, promising to award them during a seven day period on a first-come, first-served basis for projects that clear its ideological threshold.”
According to the groups, the government now disqualifies from consideration “any entity seeking to build housing in a jurisdiction with policies the administration disfavors,” per the complaint. This means there will be no funding for projects in a city or state that has not adopted the administration’s “draconian approach to local homelessness policies” and agreed to help enforce federal immigration law.
“Even in jurisdictions with policies the administration deems acceptable, entities effectively cannot compete for funding unless they profess agreement with the administration’s view that sex is binary and immutable and foreswear operating safe injection sites or similar programs designed to reduce the harm from drug use — even with wholly nonfederal funds,” the complaint alleges.
The groups argue that the government is violating the Constitution and does not have the authority to hold back funds in this way. They asked the court Thursday in the complaint to halt the “current rushed, unlawful award process” and preserve the funds at issue from expiration, allowing for their “prompt award” for projects that meet “lawful” criteria.
“We welcome the court’s decision to stop a rushed, lawless attempt to make essential funding contingent on a community’s compliance with harmful and unlawful restrictions the Trump-Vance administration is trying to impose,” wrote the National Alliance to End Homelessness on Friday after the TRO was granted by McElroy. “This order ensures that service providers can focus on what matters most: providing safe, stable housing and support to people in crisis. We will continue to fight to make sure housing resources remain available to all communities, free from political interference.”
