Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear is among more than 20 Democratic state elected officials suing the Trump administration to block an abrupt change in the allocation of federal funds to address homelessness.
Housing advocates warn that the administration’s decision, announced Nov. 13, to shift billions of dollars in grants could put as many as 170,000 formerly homeless people back on the street.
The lawsuit, filed Tuesday in the U.S. District Court for the District of Rhode Island, alleged the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) is violating the intent of Congress by moving grants away from providing permanent housing.
Beshear in a statement provided in a press release called the funding shift “illegal and cruel” and said it would “cause more people — like veterans and families — to go homeless and make our communities less safe.”
“We should be helping people get back on their feet through a safe place to call home, not barring them from any chance of success. These policy changes are wrong and dangerous, and they will set our commonwealth and country back,” Beshear said.
For more than a decade, HUD has put about 90% of funding through what’s known as Continuum of Care grants toward “permanent, supportive housing” which provides people — often those who have spent years on the streets and need mental health care — with a safe place to live and services such as counseling and financial education. The move by HUD would allow only 30% of the grants to go toward permanent housing. Most of the money would instead go to short-term, “transitional” housing aimed at getting people into jobs and in charge of their own housing.
Kentucky housing aid advocates previously told the Lantern the policy change would put more people at risk of homelessness. At stake is much of about $48 million that flows to Kentucky each year in HUD money, with the largest portion, $23 million, going to Louisville.
In Kentucky, around 3,700 individuals with disabling conditions live in permanent, supportive housing, which advocates say has proven to be the best solution for preventing homelessness. “We know that permanent housing is the solution to homelessness,” said Catherine McGeeney, communications director for the Louisville Coalition for the Homeless, which coordinates HUD funding for the area. “It effectively ends homelessness.”
The changes would affect a wide range of programs throughout Kentucky, said Adrienne Bush, executive director of the Homeless and Housing Coalition of Kentucky, including housing help offered by domestic violence, veterans and mental health groups as well as agencies that directly serve the homeless.
“There are folks who without this program would be homeless. They most likely will be homeless again without rent support and case management,” said Bush.
HUD Secretary Scott Turner in a press release announcing the policy change said it would stop “the Biden-era slush fund that fueled the homelessness crisis, shut out faith-based providers simply because of their values and incentivized never-ending government dependency.”
This article appears in Nov. 1-30, 2025.