For years, the Maine Coalition to End Domestic Violence has worked to help house people who have experienced abuse and are fleeing their homes. Currently, 50 such families, including about 40 children, are receiving rental assistance across the state.
The group is able to offer this housing initiative because of federal support and hopes to expand on that work. But whether it can do so is an open question as the Trump administration continues its efforts to shift federal homelessness funding away from permanent housing assistance and toward temporary services.
Last week, a federal judge once again blocked the administration’s efforts to move away from the “housing first” policy that has been increasingly embraced by homelessness service providers since the 1990s. Many who work in homelessness services saw this as a victory — but it also puts providers in a holding pattern, as it halts their applications for federal funding for next year’s projects.
Francine Garland Stark, executive director of the Maine Coalition to End Domestic Violence, is one of the people caught up in the changing guidance, and she emphasized the central role housing plays in addressing domestic violence.
“In order for you to be able to feel independent and able to direct your own life, you need to be able to afford your place to live. That’s pretty fundamental for all of us,” Stark said. “Housing is a critical component of being able to break free from someone who’s abusing you.”
The group regularly receives financial support from the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development for its rental assistance program. In her most recent application for three separate grants, Stark laid out a vision to more than double the coalition’s capacity for rental assistance, from 57 units to 133. She has been working with a provider in Androscoggin County that would focus on immigrants facing domestic violence if they secure additional funding.
But before the requests made it to the federal government, a federal judge in Rhode Island struck down the funding opportunity in its entirety, arguing HUD had changed the grant criteria without proper notice. In a statement provided to The Maine Monitor after this story was published, a spokesperson for the department wrote that HUD is “immediately appealing this injunction.”
The ruling won’t immediately impact current housing programs in Maine, as the funding opportunity was geared toward future projects. It is, however, putting an extra strain on providers who are already exhausted by changing federal priorities, said Dean Klein, executive director of Maine Continuum of Care, a statewide organization responsible for dispersing the federal homelessness funding to local providers and coordinating services for homeless people through regional hubs.
HUD puts out notices of funding opportunities annually and has allocated $145 million to Maine Continuum of Care since the 2018 fiscal year. Since 2009, federal law has required HUD to prioritize funding projects with a housing-first model, which emphasizes getting homeless people into permanent housing before addressing other needs, such as behavioral health issues or addiction.
But during President Donald Trump’s second term, HUD officials have tried to steer money away from housing-first initiatives and toward supportive service programs that would assist but not house homeless people. HUD Secretary Scott Turner has referred to the housing-first model as a failed experiment in “warehousing the vulnerable without results.”
Late last year, a coalition of states including Maine challenged the department’s attempt to shift funding away from permanent housing, and a judge ruled in favor of the states this June. The Maine Attorney General’s Office estimated that two thirds of the more than 1,800 Mainers who rely on Continuum of Care funding for their housing would have lost their services and become homeless if HUD’s attempted changes went into effect. While the case made its way through the courts, Congress passed an appropriations bill that allowed expiring grants to be renewed this spring, releasing $25.16 million for Maine projects and administrative costs.
Then, when the department put out another notice of a funding opportunity in June, it again de-emphasized housing-first programs and earmarked $1.3 billion for new transitional housing and supportive service projects, jeopardizing funding for existing permanent housing initiatives.
The Maine Attorney General’s Office again joined a coalition of states to challenge the funding change as Maine Continuum of Care staff guided providers in the state through the application process.
On Aug. 7, U.S. District Judge Mary S. McElroy ruled that the funding opportunity, which had a submission deadline of Aug. 26, had to be cancelled because HUD improperly set aside funding for projects other than permanent housing without providing sufficient notice or a comment period.
HUD is still required to allocate more than $4 billion in Continuum of Care funding by Dec. 1, but department officials have not clarified how they intend to do so. A statement posted to the department’s website says HUD “stands by the lawfulness” of the funding opportunity. In a statement to The Monitor after publication, a HUD spokesperson said the department was appealing the judge’s recent ruling because “the Court’s order wrongly handcuffs taxpayer dollars to the failed Housing First mandate and the status quo of deadly addiction, dangerous encampments, and permanent dependence on government assistance.”
Had the proposed funding opportunity gone through, the National Alliance to End Homelessness argued it would have put hundreds of thousands of Americans at risk of becoming homeless by taking funding away from existing projects.
Klein, who oversees the Maine Continuum of Care, said the housing-first model has been shown to be effective. According to a 2021 analysis of 26 housing studies, housing-first programs decreased homelessness by 88 percent compared to treatment-first models. The housing-first programs also improved housing stability and reduced hospitalization.
“There is a proven track record of housing-first programs being effective for people who are hardest to serve, who are disabled and elderly, people who have been homeless for long periods of time,” Klein said. “Because of that, that is a model that has been adopted up until this year for 15 years by HUD, by different administrations, and by different communities all over the country.”
Julia Kimball, a coordinator for the Homeless Response Service Hub in Androscoggin County, said that while the legal fights and funding uncertainty have created challenges, providers remain focused on making sure services can continue uninterrupted.
“For a lot of people, there may not be other backup options if this funding doesn’t happen,” Kimball said. “You have to be a really optimistic person to work in homeless services.”
Update 8/14/2026: This story was updated Friday afternoon to include a statement from HUD provided after publication.
