There are moments in Washington when the ideological theater goes quiet and something like common sense breaks through. This is one of them. Twenty-two House Republicans, led by Long Island Reps. Andrew Garbarino and Nick LaLota, have sent a draft letter to HUD Secretary Scott Turner with an unusual request: please do not disrupt the homelessness programs that are currently working. Not expand them. Not transform them. Just leave them alone.
The letter concerns a program most Americans have never heard of, though it keeps thousands of people housed. It is called the Continuum of Care. The program funds local nonprofit providers, supports long-term housing for people with severe disabilities or complex mental health needs, and pays the rent long enough for stability to take root. The money flows through the Department of Housing and Urban Development under the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act, later refined through the HEARTH Act.
The mechanics are unglamorous. Applications are dense. Contracts are slow. Every year, communities compete for funding by submitting consolidated applications that represent their entire homelessness response strategy. Yet the program works because stability is a policy decision. Every time a person exits homelessness directly into housing and receives case management that keeps them tethered to doctors, medications, or employment, the Continuum of Care is usually in the background paying the rent.
Here is what is happening. There are internal discussions inside HUD about redirecting significant funding away from permanent housing and toward transitional models that require treatment compliance or employment milestones. Supporters inside the administration view this as accountability. Critics view it as a philosophical reversal that ignores decades of evidence showing that housing first approaches stabilize people faster and reduce the costly churn of shelters, emergency rooms, and jails.
The Republicans are not asking for more money. They are asking HUD to extend grant timelines for one year and avoid experimenting with the roof while families are still sleeping underneath it. The logic is straightforward. The letter urges the Secretary to extend all existing grants expiring in 2026 under the Continuum of Care program. It notes that up to 170,000 people could lose housing or services if HUD reduces funding for permanent housing renewals, a figure reported by Politico.
The request comes during a government shutdown now in its 27th day. That administrative crisis has already delayed the Notice of Funding Opportunity HUD planned to release this fall. The dysfunction is compounding. A policy experiment is being layered onto a funding freeze.
Loss of a federal contract does not mean a provider trims staff and rearranges spreadsheets. It means a landlord does not get paid. It means leases end and people pack their things into garbage bags.
The political calculus is changing because homelessness has become a symbol of broader social anxiety. Voters want visible results. Officials feel pressure to act quickly. A pivot away from permanent housing feels decisive because it promises transformation rather than maintenance. The problem is that maintenance is sometimes what keeps a system upright.
The raw numbers tell the truth. Permanent Supportive Housing projects exist because chronically homeless individuals often cannot manage the volatility of transitional programs. Rapid Re-Housing exists because families who fall into homelessness due to a missed paycheck do not need therapy. They need rent. The Continuum of Care knits these realities into a single system.
A federal judge in Rhode Island recently issued a temporary restraining order preventing HUD from imposing new grant criteria tied to political priorities. That decision signals something deeper. Courts, too, recognize the moral risk of turning long-term housing into a swing-state bargaining chip.
The story beneath the story is about institutional memory. Federal housing policy has drifted through ideological weather for decades. The Continuum of Care program emerged from lessons learned the hard way. Fragmented services failed. Uncoordinated shelters failed. Making housing contingent on sobriety or compliance failed. The HEARTH Act did not create a grand vision. It created a durable structure that communities could rely on.
Stability has no constituency. When a program works, people forget about it. When something breaks, the same people demand to know why government cannot get its act together.
A fascinating alignment is forming. Conservatives want spending predictability. Local service providers want continuity. Homelessness advocates want to protect permanent housing. These groups do not share a worldview. They do share a preference for not pushing thousands of people back onto sidewalks to satisfy a policy experiment.
The Continuum of Care has always been an inside-baseball program. It will probably remain that way. The people who depend on it do not organize rallies. They are busy trying to stay alive. The providers who administer the funds rarely have media departments. They are busy finding landlords who will take a voucher.
The real story is this: sometimes the most important work of government is not innovation. Sometimes the most important work is consistency.
The country argues about homelessness as if failure is inevitable. Yet thousands of individuals exit homelessness every year, quietly, into small apartments with working heaters and locking doors. They stabilize. They reconnect with family. They take medications that they had abandoned during long months outside. The program pays their rent long enough for dignity to take root.
It should not take a rare bipartisan letter to protect that.