An unhoused resident sleeps on a dimly lit porch on the steps of a school in Austin. This week, all staff at the United States Interagency Council on Homelessness, which coordinates homelessness policy across the federal government, were put on leave. Brandon Bell/Getty Images hide caption
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Brandon Bell/Getty Images
A tiny agency that coordinates homelessness policy across the federal government has been effectively shut down, with all its staff put on administrative leave.
"The irony here is that the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness is designed for government efficiency," said Jeff Olivet, the body's most recent executive director under President Biden.
Congress created it in 1987, he said, "to make sure that the federal response to homelessness is coordinated, is efficient, and reduces duplication across federal agencies."
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There were fewer than 20 employees and a budget of just over $4 million. But President Trump included it in an executive order last month on whittling parts of the federal bureaucracy to the "maximum extent" allowed by law.
Legally, the homeless agency's authorization continues until 2028. But DOGE, the cost-cutting team overseen by Elon Musk, told its employees Monday that they'd be put on leave the next day, according to an email from one employee that was shared with NPR.
The agency helped cities manage record-high homelessness
Part of the agency's mandate is to help states and localities manage homelessness, and Olivet said that under his leadership, it focused on the record-high number of people living outside.
"Even at a time where we saw overall homelessness going up in many places," he said, "in those communities like Dallas and Phoenix and Chicago and others, we were able to see significant reductions, or at least not increases in unsheltered homelessness."
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The agency also coordinated an intensive push to bring down homelessness among veterans, making sure they were provided housing and healthcare. Over a decade, Olivet said, veterans homelessness dropped by more than half.
"The U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness has been vital in shaping effective policy to end homelessness," Ann Oliva, CEO of the National Alliance to End Homelessness, said in a statement.
But the Trump administration plans to take a dramatically different approach to the problem.
Shutting down the agency will make it easier for Trump to shift homelessness policy
For decades, since the first Bush administration, there was bipartisan support for getting people housing first and then offering whatever mental or addiction treatments they needed. But there's been a growing conservative backlash to that as homelessness rates have steadily risen.
During Trump's first term, his appointee tried to steer the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness more toward treatment options than permanent housing. But the executive director is the only political appointee at the small agency, and all others are career staff.
"He was really working against the current," said Devon Kurtz of the Cicero Institute, a conservative think tank. "Ultimately, the inertia of it was such that it continued to be sort of a single mouthpiece for housing first."
Kurtz supports a dramatic shift away from a housing first policy, and thinks that can happen more easily without the homeless agency.
It's not clear if there will be a legal challenge to the move. Democratic members of Congress objected to Trump's targeting of the agency, calling it "nonsensical."
"At a time when housing costs and homelessness are on a historic rise, we need an all-hands-on-deck approach to ensuring every American has a safe and stable place to rest their head at night," Rep. Emanuel Cleaver II of Missouri said in a statement to NPR. "Unfortunately, attacks on the [agency], along with damaging cuts to federal housing programs and staff, and the President's tumultuous tariffs, will only exacerbate this country's housing and homelessness crisis."
