HUD Secretary Champions Efforts to Treat Root Causes of Homelessness

On December 16, HUD Secretary Scott Turner toured facilities at the Helping Up Mission in Baltimore, Maryland, a faith-based organization serving the homeless for 140 years. This visit was part of a larger tour in which Turner will visit facilities that are successfully helping people transition from homelessness to self-sustained living as HUD reexamines its approach to homelessness.

WMAR 2 News reports:

U.S. Housing and Urban Development Secretary Scott Turner toured Helping Up Mission’s men’s recovery campus today, meeting with clients and staff to learn how healthcare, recovery, job training and faith work together to address homelessness.

Turner said models like this are key to helping people move toward independence rather than long-term dependence.

For nearly 140 years, Helping Up Mission has taken a holistic approach to homelessness in Baltimore, treating not just immediate needs but the root causes that keep people from getting back on their feet.

In a subsequent press briefing, Turner explained why he is rethinking the national approach to homelessness: “Between 2020 and 2024, homelessness rose 33%. There was record funding from HUD as it pertains to homelessness and yet homelessness rose dramatically.…We cannot have record funding and yet homelessness goes up dramatically.”

The Trump administration has taken the nation’s approach to homelessness in a new direction for the first time in over ten years, ending the failed, one-size-fits-all “Housing First” policy and pivoting toward treatment and recovery efforts. Under Housing First, organizations that required sobriety, treatment, job training, or other conditions in order to participate were ineligible for federal funding, despite positive outcomes. This year, this has all begun to change.

Last July, President Trump signed the “Ending Crime and Disorder on America’s Streets” Executive Order, which rolled back the failed Housing First policy. Then, in November (delayed by the government shutdown), HUD released a reformed funding package, opening grant applications to organizations that were previously ineligible under Housing First.

During the press briefing, Turner referenced a study conducted by the California Policy Lab, which found that 50% of the homeless population reported that mental illness contributed to their homelessness, and 51% reported that addiction contributed to their homelessness.

“And so, because we know these things,” he explained, “we cannot continue to run the same plays that we’ve been running, like just housing people. We have to not only house them but to understand what the root cause is, treat the root cause, bring transformation, and then to help them to live a life of self-sustainability. That’s compassionate common sense.”

Watch the full press briefing here:

Turner explained to CNN’s Elex Michaelson:

[Faith-based organizations] have real results in helping homeless men and women to be transformed, to be healed, and to live a life of self-sustainability. And so it is my goal, and our team at HUD, it is our goal to help faith-based organizations to have an opportunity to come to the table, to compete for these grants, to continue the great service that they do.

Watch: