Zella Knight became homeless in 2006 when she lost her job while struggling with a heart condition. After months of couch surfing, she saved up enough money to get an apartment in Sun Valley, California, with the assistance of a voucher through the federal program commonly known as Section 8.
Four years later, though, Knight was evicted in what she believes was a strategy by her landlord to replace low-income tenants with high paying buyers. It took her two years to find another home.
Now, Knight is worried the housing system could be about to fail her again. Since the start of the Trump administration, a wide array of executive orders, budget cuts and policy reversals have threatened to increase the laborious task of finding housing assistance and renter protections across the U.S.
While Congress is unlikely to fully approve the budget request, it does provide a glimpse into the administration’s policy priorities to address the homelessness crisis.
On the campaign trail, President Trump criticized Democrat-led cities for their handling of the homelessness crisis, including allowing visible encampments and adopting policies with decriminalization and legal protections that many Republicans derided as soft leadership.
By highlighting images of encampments, drug use and rising crime in cities like San Francisco and New York as symbols of liberal failure, Republican politicians portrayed the Democratic party as one that is soft on crime and creates economic instability — a message that resonated with some voters.
But now, Trump’s policies could be poised to make the crisis worse. The National Low Income Housing Coalition estimates that up to 2 million Americans could lose assistance if the cuts are enacted.
“Let me be clear, if these cuts go through, I could lose my voucher and end up on the street again,” said Knight, a Los Angeles resident and tenant leader at the Coalition.
The homelessness crisis that Trump highlighted is real. In 2024, the United States experienced a record high in homelessness, with approximately 771,480 people experiencing homelessness on a single night, according to the 2024 Annual Homelessness Assessment Report.
In response, cities and states have scrambled to expand shelter space, invest in affordable housing, and improve access to mental health and substance use treatment. But with rising rents, limited housing supply, and uneven local implementation — the crisis continues to outpace the response.
Instead, the White House’s 2026 budget would slash rental aid overall by more than 40% and turn the Section 8 housing voucher program —- which provides rental assistance to low-income households like Knight and 5.2 million Americans nationwide — into a state-run program funded with block grants. The changes would also impose time limits on voucher use and eliminate several programs through the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) that fund emergency shelters and affordable housing construction.
Already, across the country, veterans, working families, and seniors facing homelessness are finding that shelters are running out of space, staff are being laid off, and vital resources are disappearing. Though the most sweeping federal cuts are still only proposals, a series of early administrative rollbacks, paired with rising costs and housing shortages, has already pushed many programs and citizens to the brink.
“Housing is something that impacts everybody, even if you’re comfortable with your mortgage payments, the precarity of a lot of this country’s households in terms of where they live, where they raise their kids and so forth, has broader social implications,” said Dr. Michael Glass, Associate Professor and Director of the Urban Studies Program at the University of Pittsburgh.
Looming federal cuts
At Win, the largest provider of shelter and services for homeless families in New York City, the organization is preparing for a surge in demand.
“You have a system that’s already over capacity, and if there’s cuts, you’re only going to see that the length of stay and the number of people in shelter go up into a system that’s already tremendously overburdened,” said Christine Quinn, Win’s president and CEO.
Already, HUD has canceled $60 million in funding for affordable housing projects across the U.S. The cuts have caused delays and uncertainties for hundreds of development initiatives, particularly hitting small community development nonprofits and stalling construction efforts, according to Quinn.
In addition, HUD is facing up to 780 layoffs across the country, with plans to cut approximately half of its workforce, potentially leading to the elimination of 4,000 positions, according to a letter signed by House Democrats on March 17th. These reductions, including field office closures, are part of a broader effort by the Trump administration to reduce federal spending and streamline government operations.
“We already have more homeless families than beds,” Quinn said. “If Section 8 and emergency vouchers are gutted, the exit door out of shelter will essentially close.”
Quinn added that Win is facing a potential $5.5 million cut to its supportive housing programs, which help transition individuals with mental health needs, domestic violence histories, or chronic instability into permanent housing.
New York State has attempted to counter the federal pullback with Project Hope 2025, a housing package designed to preserve stability for low-income residents. It includes the state’s first-ever housing voucher and an expanded Working Families Tax Credit. Quinn says that it’s not going to make up for the Federal cuts, but it will still make a difference.
The shift away from ‘Housing First’
Many cities, often led by progressive officials, have adopted a “Housing First” model, which prioritizes placing people in permanent housing without preconditions like sobriety or treatment. While studies show it can be effective for chronically homeless individuals, critics argue it has struggled in places with limited housing or support services.
On the campaign trail, however, President Trump said he planned to steer away from this model. Instead his focus has been on relocation to government run encampments, mandatory health and addiction services with punitive measures for those who do not cooperate.
Critics warn his approach overlooks structural issues of homelessness.
“Big state run shelters are seen as a risky place to be, rather than as something that is necessarily a benefit”, Dr. Glass added.
But some conservatives argue shifting away from ‘Housing First’ is a step in the right direction.
“There are certainly plenty of people who need short and medium term housing,” said Judge Glock, director of research and a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute . “But the continued provision of housing first units permanently for the general homeless population, does not seem to be having the effects that may have helped.”
Regardless of the shift from certain models, shelters are already feeling the strain of limited federal resources on the ground.
On the Blackfeet Reservation in Montana, Marcedes Old Person runs the Medicine Bear Shelter. The Blackfeet Reservation is home to 10,309 people, a third of whom live below the poverty level. Access to tribal housing is limited, and federal funding for low-income housing doesn’t come close to meeting community needs.
Her soup kitchen feeds over 100 people a day, but recent federal cuts have forced her to rotate staff and cut hours.
“I used to be able to sober people up, give them a hot meal, and get them hired through workforce programs,” she said.
Holding the Shelter together is a Community Services Block grant. The program is in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) that provides money to states, territories and tribes to assist low-income families and individuals.
In 2021 and 2022, Old Person received a boost from the Federal American Rescue Plan Act, the pandemic assistance law passed early in President Biden’s term. With the funds, she was allowed to add trailers to the shelter and expand its services to up to 40 people, relying on a 100,000 dollar grant which has not sufficed any growth. Her program relied on funding from a tribal employment initiative that was reduced in January. That loss affected her staffing, food supplies, and basic hygiene services.
Medicine Bear Lodge now operates more like a soup kitchen, serving one hot meal a day and offering showers or hygiene supplies when enough volunteers are available.
“We’re not even a 24/7 shelter like we want to be,” she said. “If I don’t find money soon, I’ll have to shut down.”