Dozens of formerly unhoused community members in the Charlottesville area are at risk of being back out on the streets after the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development announced drastic changes to how it intends to fund certain programs that serve people experiencing homelessness nationwide.
In the fall, the federal agency announced that it would make deep cuts to funding for long-term housing programs and instead shift that money — which amounts to $3.9 billion, according to a November 2025 PBS report — to transitional housing programs that, on top of being temporary, have additional work requirements that community members with disabling conditions might not be able to meet.
In a statement about the changes, HUD claimed the new policies are meant to “restore accountability” and “promote self-sufficiency” by addressing what it claimed to be “the root cause of homelessness, including illicit drugs and mental illness,” according to a November 2025 NPR report.
But local service providers say that it will only harm vulnerable residents.
That’s partly due to the fact that permanent supportive housing and transitional housing differ in a few key ways, and someone who is eligible for permanent supportive housing may not be eligible for transitional housing. What’s more, in order to be eligible for transitional housing, someone must be unhoused, so trying to move between the two types of housing would force some community members back into homelessness.
At least one Charlottesville-area program is on HUD’s chopping block: Region Ten’s permanent supportive housing program. The program pays for rent, utilities, and supportive services for 32 community members with disabling conditions who were chronically homeless before entering the program.
“The proposed funding shift creates uncertainty for the individuals and families who are currently stably housed through these programs,” including Region Ten’s, Joanna Jennings, director of community relations for Region Ten told Charlottesville Tomorrow in an email.
More than half of the people in Region Ten’s HUD-funded supportive housing program are seniors, and many people in the program are not able to work, said Shayla Washington, executive director of the Blue Ridge Area Coalition for the Homeless, a local nonprofit that helps service providers like Region Ten apply for federal funding. That means they would not qualify for the transitional housing programs HUD wants to fund instead.
A federal judge has blocked HUD from implementing those sweeping changes — at least for now. But service providers say there is very little guidance on how they should proceed with applying for HUD funding for the coming year. And if they’re able to apply, they have no idea if, or when, they’ll get the money.
Time is of the essence. Funding for Region Ten’s permanent supportive housing program runs out Jan. 31. If their clients’ rents aren’t paid in February, landlords could begin eviction proceedings.
BRACH and Region Ten are trying to find other sources of funding to prevent these folks from falling into homelessness again.
“We’re all scrambling,” Washington said.
Funding transitional housing at the expense of permanent housing is a mistake, service providers say
Getting federal funding for local homelessness programs isn’t the most straightforward process, even when sweeping policy changes aren’t involved. But this time around, it’s vastly more difficult for service providers who are already stretched thin.
Every year, HUD issues what is called a “notice of funding opportunities” letting service providers know that they can apply for funding. Last year, HUD issued its notice of funding opportunities for homelessness programs on Nov. 13, 2025, with applications due Jan. 15, 2026.
That was more than four months later than normal, according to the Federal Housing Action Tracker maintained by the Virginia Housing Alliance, a statewide organization that advocates for expanding housing opportunities and ending homelessness.
Typically, organizations have contracts with HUD in place by Feb. 1, Washington said.
In order for small local organizations like Region Ten to apply for federal funding for homelessness services programs, they have to be part of what is called a “continuum of care.”
A continuum of care is a coordinated network of service providers that together take a unified approach to helping unhoused community members. In Charlottesville, that includes The Haven day shelter, the People and Congregations Engaged in Ministry seasonal overnight shelter, and Region Ten’s permanent supportive housing program. Each offers a different service, but they work together to meet their clients’ needs.
HUD has a program designed specifically to support continuums of care across the country, allowing local organizations to decide how to use funding based on their community’s unique needs.
Each continuum of care must also have a lead, which is an umbrella organization that helps others get federal, state and local funds for their programs. Locally, that’s the BRACH, which serves the City of Charlottesville as well as Albemarle, Fluvanna, Greene, Louisa and Nelson counties. BRACH has three employees, including Washington.
For the permanent supportive housing program, for example, BRACH completes the HUD application for funding from HUD’s Continuum of Care program on behalf of Region Ten. If HUD awards Region Ten funds, the money is deposited into Region Ten’s HUD bank account.
Region Ten has had a HUD-funded permanent supportive housing program in place since 2003, Joanna Jennings, Region Ten’s director of community relations, told Charlottesville Tomorrow.
Most of the money Region Ten receives from HUD goes toward paying rent for its 32 clients, and most of those rents are around $1,000 per month, Washington said. The rest goes toward utilities and 1.2 case managers who help folks with things like applying for or recertifying social security and/or disability benefits.
But under the proposed changes, HUD would drastically reduce the amount it puts toward supportive housing programs, and fund transitional housing programs instead.
Permanent supportive housing programs operate on a “housing-first model,” meaning that someone is housed first and then provided with case management services to help keep them there for as long as they need or want.
It’s effective, said Owen Brennan, executive director of The Haven day shelter. When someone is unhoused, they’re focused on surviving one day at a time and unable to think about the long term. Getting them into housing allows them to focus on improving their financial, physical or mental health — whatever made them fall into homelessness in the first place, Brennan said.
“We have seen that the permanent supportive housing program works amazingly for folks who have struggled with chronic homelessness, have struggled with all different kinds of issues,” he added.
There are a few problems with the proposed shift toward transitional housing in place of permanent supportive housing, local service providers said.
One is that transitional housing is temporary. The folks in permanent supportive housing need long-term support in order to remain housed, Washington said.
“It is so much easier to address whatever issues you’re struggling with when you have your own safe, stable place to be, as opposed to trying to address those issues within a shelter,” said Brennan.
Transitional housing can be helpful for some, but for others, it’s not enough time to get their lives in order, service providers say.
Another issue is that the area’s existing transitional housing does not serve the population in permanent supportive housing. For example, the Monticello Area Community Action Agency’s transitional housing program, Hope House, prioritizes families facing homelessness. Permanent supportive housing, however, serves mostly single adults, including many seniors, who have been chronically homeless and who have a disabling condition.
Yet another problem with HUD’s new direction is that the transitional housing HUD is looking to fund comes with work requirements. Many of the people in Region Ten’s program cannot work, Washington said — they have disabling conditions, and on top of that, more than half of them are elderly.
“I’m concerned about that piece, too,” Washington said. “Many of these folks can’t work. And it takes forever to get benefits,” Washington added. “They need a lot of support to navigate that stuff.”
And even if transitional housing that could serve these folks did exist in the area, people would not be able to move seamlessly from permanent supportive housing into transitional housing. Per HUD policy, someone is only eligible for transitional housing if they are unhoused. So, these folks would have to become homeless again in order to be eligible, Washington said.
While it would be great to be able to fund more transitional housing programs in the community, such as ones for formerly incarcerated women, Washington said, shifting funds away from permanent supportive housing upends the community’s homelessness response system.
“These are folks who have gotten things together,” Washington said. “They’re in supportive housing, they have either jobs or benefits. They have a case worker and on-site support. All of that could go away.”
‘Loss of housing is what causes homelessness’
Another big problem that may not be as obvious, service providers say, is the ideology at work in the proposed changes.
The approach HUD appears to be taking is one that assumes substance abuse and addiction, in addition to mental illness, are what cause homelessness, according to a statement from the agency quoted in this November 2025 NPR report.
That’s not true, service providers say.
“Loss of housing is what causes homelessness,” Washington said. “And there are so many ways people can lose their housing.”
“Rents are too high, and incomes are not keeping up. The cost of everything is increasing. And when people can’t afford their housing, it spirals with everything else,” Washington said.
That’s well-established, Brennan said. Substance use, behavioral health, and physical health can contribute, he added, but it’s usually not the root cause — there are a lot of folks who struggle with these same issues who are housed.
“Addiction or substance use issues may come along as a secondary strategy that folks turn to to cope with the stress of homelessness,” Brennan said. “And it’s not clear to me that there is evidence to support that funding more treatment will result in more housing outcomes for people who are experiencing homelessness.”
What’s more, it incorrectly casts substance abuse — and therefore homelessness — as a moral failing, rather than an economic circumstance, Brennan added.
Turning away from housing-first programs like permanent supportive housing, and toward transitional housing programs with addiction treatment and work requirements, is “an about-face on evidence-based policy,” said Mary Frances Kenion, vice president of training and technical assistance for the National Alliance to End Homelessness who has worked in homelessness services for nearly two decades.
In recent years, conservative think tanks and right-wing media have blamed the rise of visible homelessness on housing-first approaches like permanent supportive housing, and that idea has gained traction in the broader population, Christopher Brzovic, who has more than a decade of experience working in the homelessness policy sector, wrote in an article for Shelterforce in November 2025.
Critics also claim that the growing number of people experiencing homelessness is evidence that housing-first approaches are not effective.
But the research shows otherwise, Brzovic, Kenion, and others say.
The effectiveness of permanent supportive housing is backed up by “rigorous studies,” according to a recent paper from The Urban Institute, a nonprofit research institute. By contrast, the paper points out, “no evidence has found that transitional housing reduces rates of homelessness or successfully houses people experiencing chronic homelessness.” Instead, those programs often exclude the people who most need them.
Local supportive housing providers facing even more questions as states challenge HUD in court
A coalition of local governments and nonprofit homelessness advocacy organizations filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court of Rhode Island on Dec. 1, 2025, and asked a judge to issue a preliminary injunction to stop HUD from implementing its proposed changes to the Continuum of Care program.
The National Low Income Housing Coalition, the National Alliance to End Homelessness, and the governments of San Francisco, Boston, and Nashville, are among the plaintiffs.
The plaintiffs argue, among other things, that HUD cannot make such sweeping changes to its policy without the approval of Congress. The proposed changes would destabilize housing for more than 170,000 people across the country, the plaintiffs say, and that the shift away from permanent supportive housing programs and toward transitional housing with work and addiction treatment requirements go against proven strategies for reducing homelessness.
HUD withdrew its funding notice on Dec. 8, 2025, and promised to address critics’ concerns.
During a hearing on Dec. 19, 2025, U.S. District Court Judge Mary McElroy in Rhode Island granted the preliminary injunction in an oral ruling. She agreed with the plaintiffs’ argument that HUD’s last-minute overhaul of its Continuum of Care program would push people back out on the streets in the middle of winter and cause them “irreparable harm,” according to an NPR report.
McElroy criticized the federal agency for causing “chaos” and ordered HUD to return to the previous year’s funding formula. The agency is supposed to take steps to renew all fiscal year 2024 Continuum of Care grants, but is not required to award those funds as of yet.
But Washington isn’t sure when, or if, the money will arrive. HUD usually takes a few months to process grant applications, and then a few more months to send out the notices — so it could be at least six months. And that could change depending on how the lawsuit progresses.
With HUD funding applications now due Feb. 9 and the clock running down on current grants, Washington has asked the City of Charlottesville for help. The city stepped in to fund the program for 2025 when an application error meant the program received zero funding from HUD.
City Manager Sam Sanders told City Council during its Jan. 5 meeting that BRACH and Region Ten might need assistance once again. Council could reappropriate funds it had set aside for shelter operations to help Region Ten and BRACH, he said.
The Council seemed open to the idea, and last week, Washington submitted an official request for $175,932. But reappropriating those funds could take a while. The earliest the resolution could go before City Council is Mon., Feb. 2, city spokesperson Afton Schneider told Charlottesville Tomorrow in an email on Jan. 16. Reallocating the funds will only require one public reading, Schneider said, so Council could approve the request the night it comes before them.
The nearly $176,000 would cover rent, utilities, and case management services for 22 of the 32 people in Region Ten’s permanent supportive housing program, Washington said. Region Ten is hoping the remaining 10 clients will shift into a program run by the Virginia Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Services. They’d likely be able to stay in their homes, just with a different source of subsidy funding.
In the worst-case scenario, February rents might not be paid for those 32 people. If rents are late, landlords will have the right to begin eviction proceedings. Evictions take months to move through the courts.
The Haven is on standby to help with eviction prevention funding for these folks if needed, said Brennan.
Washington has also talked with the Virginia Department of Housing and Community Development about getting state support for Region Ten’s permanent supportive housing program. It’s possible that the state could reallocate to BRACH and Region Ten any money that other continuums of care throughout the state have not used, Washington said. But that wouldn’t be until after the end of the state’s fiscal year — June 30 — and continuums of care like to use every dollar they’re given.
More local housing support planned, but some projects are still years away
All this could have devastating consequences for the 32 people in the permanent housing program — but it could also have reverberating effects on the community’s overall response to homelessness, said Kenion.
She calls HUD’s attempt to gut its Continuum of Care program “an overreach” on a community’s ability to address its own unique problems.
“As much as we are considered experts at the national level, it’s really the communities that are on the ground doing this work, that have been doing the work, that know their people, who know what their strengths are, what their barriers look like, and who know what the immediate needs look like,” she said.
Local service providers have been clear on what they need to mount a stronger homelessness response system in the area: a permanent, overnight low-barrier shelter; more transitional housing; and more permanent supportive housing.
The city has taken concrete steps toward some of those things. Last year, City Council greenlit a plan to purchase a building at 2000 Holiday Dr. to convert into a permanent, overnight low-barrier shelter. But the shelter won’t be online for years.
The city has also given money to the construction of an 80-unit permanent supportive housing project on Route 29 in Albemarle County, called Vista 29. Albemarle County has contributed to this project as well.
Vista29 will be run by SupportWorks Housing, a nonprofit housing developer and the same organization that runs The Crossings permanent supportive housing project in the city. When The Crossings opened in March 2012, it helped cut the number of people experiencing chronic homelessness in the area in half.
Neither Vista29 nor The Crossings will be affected by these particular HUD changes because SupportWorks does not receive Continuum of Care funding for any of its projects in Charlottesville, said SupportWorks executive director Allison Bogdanovic. Instead, it relies on state, local, and philanthropic funds.
But the Vista29 project has faced a number of delays, as a result won’t be finished until late this year — too late to immediately house any of the folks who could be forced out of Region Ten’s permanent supportive housing.
“You all are in this position where you’re making progress,” and if HUD proceeds with these changes, that progress could be rolled back, Kenion said. “I don’t know if we can accurately quantify the harm that’s going to cause, and how far back that’s going to put Charlottesville’s system.”
