Categories: Federal
11.14.2025
The Network issued the following statement in response to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) FY2025 Continuum of Care (CoC) Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO):
“The Network strongly condemns HUD’s harmful and misguided FY2025 CoC Program NOFO.
By abruptly slashing funding for existing permanent housing by two-thirds, and diverting resources to temporary, conditional programs with forced treatment and other ineffective mandates, HUD is abandoning the very people this program was created to serve. Now more than 13,000 New York households face immediate risk of losing their homes – with no plans for safe transitions.
Congress must intervene. Renewing all eligible 2024 CoC programs for 12 months is the only path to preventing catastrophic destabilization across New York communities.
The CoC is a cornerstone of New York’s housing infrastructure – providing $326.6 million annually, and anchoring mixed-finance developments that leverage at least $1.46 billion in state and local capital subsidy, Low-Income Housing Tax Credit equity, and private investment. HUD’s abrupt shift threatens to collapse decades of carefully structured financing, force nonprofit providers to walk away from buildings they have operated for generations, and trigger widespread layoffs of direct service staff who have kept thousands of formerly homeless New Yorkers stably housed.
This NOFO harms communities,
it ignores Congress’s authority and intent,
it defies nearly four decades of bi-partisan consensus, and
it disregards overwhelming and conclusive evidence: permanent housing ends homelessness.
Rather than strengthening and building upon proven solutions, HUD proposes to dismantle it – stripping permanent housing dollars in favor of approaches that have already been shown to fail. This turns back the clock on decades of progress, undermining the very mission of the CoC: long-term stability for people with disabilities, chronic illness, and families with children who have overcome homelessness.
Cutting permanent housing is not efficiency, it is waste. It will drive up the number of shelters, street encampments, and avoidable costly emergency services.
This NOFO is a profound betrayal of evidence, of bipartisan policymaking, and of the people and families whose lives depend on supportive housing and the communities and workforce that support it.”