Congressman Andy Barr has a plan to fix how the federal government deals with homelessness.
The Kentucky Republican is expected to introduce legislation that would drastically reduce the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s support for so-called Housing First policies to counter homelessness, according to documents reviewed by The Daily Wire. Critics say the approach has exacerbated homelessness while cutting off government aid to groups that prioritize targeting root causes, such as mental illness and drug addiction.
“Housing First policy shuts out providers who offer critical wraparound services that are often essential for helping individuals break the cycle of homelessness,” Barr said in a statement. “We need to abandon HUD’s exclusive reliance on Housing First in favor of an all-hands-on-deck approach to equip the best and most effective providers with the federal funds needed to end homelessness.”
Barr, who is running to replace outgoing Senator Mitch McConnell, says his Housing Promotes Livelihood and Ultimate Success Act would do just that.
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“The Housing PLUS Act ensures federal funds are reaching providers who are helping people transition from homelessness to self-sufficiency, without unneeded restrictions.”
Barr has introduced similar legislation in the past, but this is the first time he has done so with Republicans in control of Congress and the White House.
The Department of Housing and Urban Development awards grants from its Continuum of Care program to providers seeking to care for the homeless. Those providers include privately-run charities, government agencies, and others. They aid the homeless by offering no-cost housing, but in many cases, they place conditions on housing, such as mandatory job training or addiction treatment.
The Housing First approach has largely frozen out providers that only offer conditional housing, however. The approach prioritizes stability over treatment. HUD effectively bans requirements to maintain housing, such as sobriety or engaging with caseworkers, in order for providers to qualify for federal grant money.
The Housing First model was first introduced in 2008 under the Bush administration, but massively expanded five years later. Under President Barack Obama, Housing First became the federal government’s “one-size-fits-all” approach to the entire United States homeless population, Texas Public Policy Foundation senior fellow Michele Steeb told The Daily Wire.
“Mental illness and addiction are [problems that] about 80% of the overall homeless population struggle with,” Steeb said. “What HUD did [under Obama] was they defunded those services. Those services used to be funded and provided with housing up until 2013, but HUD defunded those services, and they put all of that funding instead into more housing subsidies.”
Critics of the approach argue that it fails to care for the entire person and does little to address the root causes of homelessness. In fact, far too many recipients fall back into homelessness. A 2022 report by the Cicero Institute found that homelessness increased by nearly 25% in areas that exclusively rely on the Housing First model.
An earlier version of Barr’s bill sought to allocate no less than 30% of HUD grant awards for Continuum of Care to housing providers that provide or condition their services on “wraparound services,” such as treatment for addiction. The current version has bumped that allocation to no less than 50%.
“By redirecting federal resources toward programs that provide treatment and recovery for those experiencing homelessness — nearly 80% of whom also battle mental illness or addiction — the Housing PLUS Act confronts a humanitarian crisis a decade in the making and ends the cycle of despair and decline of individuals and communities,” Steeb said in a statement.
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