How Federal Funding Cuts Are Unraveling Housing Stability

Gina Rodarte Quiroz Survived Homelessness, Built a Career Helping Others Do the Same, and Was Laid Off Twice by Federal Funding Cuts

Federal budget cuts can seem like a faraway battle taking place between two fighters that most Americans will never meet. But the Trump administration’s decision to slash funding for social services hits closer to home than many realize.

Gina Rodarte Quiroz, the California State Captain for the National Coalition for the Homeless and a former AmeriCorps member, detailed just how impactful the Trump administration’s budget cuts have been in a recent op-ed for The Santa Barbara Independent. Quiroz worked as a homeless outreach worker for AmeriCorps, where she used her more than six years of lived experience to help people “navigate systems that are often confusing and unforgiving.”

“When I was living outside, I was employed. At one point, I worked two jobs at the same time,” Quiroz wrote. “Having a job did not protect me then, and it doesn’t guarantee protection now. The idea that steady work solves everything ignores the reality of low wages, unstable funding, and a housing market in which one missed paycheck can trigger a collapse.”

That fear of becoming homeless again reared its ugly head when Quiroz was abruptly let go from AmeriCorps because of funding issues created by the administration. She was reinstated at her job after a lengthy court battle, but she warned that the disruption “already caused damage that couldn’t be undone.”

“On a Sunday evening, we were told not to come to work the next day. No warning. No transition. No safety net. Just like that, our income was gone,” Quiroz wrote.

Her journey didn’t end there, unfortunately. Quiroz wrote that she was laid off again a few months later from her job as a housing specialist with Partners in Housing Solutions due to federal funding cuts. That layoff put her at risk of becoming homeless again.

“Now I am at serious risk of losing the home I’ve held onto for the past three years. The place where I rebuilt my life,” Quiroz wrote. “The place that represents stability after years of surviving outside.”

“This situation isn’t unusual. It’s not an extreme case. It’s a clear example of how fragile stability can be,” she added.

When Budget Lines Become Human Costs

Quiroz’s experience illustrates how battles over federal funding can affect people’s lives. In many cases, federal budgets are discussed solely in terms of revenue and expenditures. But those dollar figures correspond with a human cost that is not captured on any balance sheet. In Quiroz’s case, the federal budget cuts threatened the stability that she had spent years building after leaving homelessness behind.

Quiroz’s experience is becoming more common for federal workers and employees whose jobs rely on federal funding. The Trump administration has been on an all-out warpath to revise federal standards for homeless services funding during its second term. Last year, the administration attempted to overhaul the Continuum of Care grant program, the largest single source of funding for homeless services, by capping expenditures on permanent supportive housing and requiring grantors to increase the number of faith-based organizations they fund.

A federal judge in Rhode Island halted those efforts, writing in her opinion that “the constant churn and chaos seem to be the point.” But the court victory was short-lived.

Rather than abandon its agenda, HUD shifted tactics, revising its latest Continuum of Care Notice of Funding Opportunity to impose new restrictions on permanent supportive housing funding, force service providers to comply with executive orders targeting diversity programs, transgender and nonbinary individuals’ rights, and federal immigration enforcement. It also issued a separate youth homeless services NOFO directing providers away from Housing First and toward transitional housing combined with supportive services.

On June 22, a coalition of 10 governments and nonprofits filed a second lawsuit in the same Rhode Island district court, arguing the new changes could force 97,000 people back into homelessness.

That is happening at a time when the most recent snapshot count of homelessness across America showed the first annual decline in several years. According to HUD’s data, more than 745,000 people were homeless in America in 2025, representing a 3% decline when compared to 2024.

“We know that the Housing First model was working; the HUD NOFO kind of shifts away from that, so there’s some concern that if we don’t follow that model, we may see more unhoused youth,” Courtney Patel, CEO of Daybreak Dayton, a youth homeless shelter in Ohio’s Miami Valley, told local news station Dayton247now.com.

The System Was Working. Now It’s Being Dismantled.

Quiroz explained that policy choices like those pursued by the Trump administration reflect a broader pattern in how America views homelessness. She argued that the lived experience “does not match the stereotypes that people hold onto,” and that can be readily seen in how the Trump administration is addressing the issue.

“What kept me unhoused for so long wasn’t a lack of effort,” she wrote. “It was a mix of policies and systems that make stability hard to reach and easy to lose. Criminalization of poverty, underfunded programs, unstable employment tied to short-term funding, and a housing system that often shuts people out all play a role. Even services meant to help can fall short when staff lack training in basic approaches such as Housing First or trauma-informed care.”

Instead of relying on outdated myths, Quiroz suggested that policymakers begin listening to people who have walked the path of homelessness as they consider new policies and rules that affect programs serving homeless individuals.

“If we want fewer people living on the streets, we need to stop blaming individuals and start demanding systems that hold up under pressure,” Quiroz wrote. “That means stronger tenant protections, stable funding for essential programs, and policies that prevent people from falling into crisis in the first place.”

“It also means listening to people who have lived through it,” she added.

What It Would Actually Take to Fix This

Now is not the time to be silent about homelessness in the United States or anywhere else. Unhoused people deserve safe and sanitary housing just as much as those who can afford rent or a mortgage.

Poverty and homelessness are both policy choices, not personal failures. That’s why we need you to contact your officials and tell them you support legislation that:

Streamlines the development of affordable housing

Reduces barriers for people experiencing homelessness to enter permanent housing

Bolsters government response to homelessness

Together, we can end homelessness.