‘Life or death moment,’ local shelters react to proposed changes to federal grant access for housing assistance

Salisbury, Md. – In June, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development released this year’s grant proposal for state agencies and non-profits to use for housing assistance programs. Known as the Continuum of Care Notice of Funding Opportunity, state and local agencies say it includes significant cuts to permanent housing assistance.

“It sounds dramatic to say this, but for most of these people, this is a life or death moment,” Assistant Secretary for Homeless Solutions for the Maryland Department of Housing and Community Development Danielle Meister said. “The loss of these housing funds is the thing that could result in someone having to live in a tent next year or enter into a shelter that is not maybe good for their health condition.”

Meister said the new CoC NOFO could result in about 1,400 households losing permanent housing in the state.

“Overall, that gets up to about 2,000 to 2,500 people,” Meister said. “Many of these are families with children, so it’s not just single adults, it’s not just the elderly. These are also families with children where mom or dad might have a permanent disability and can’t return to the workforce too. So really affects all populations.”

Meister said the changes could cut over $33 million in funding for Maryland, disrupting housing for roughly 40% of current participants on the Eastern Shore. Maryland DHCD officials said the current number of households enrolled in HUD Permanent Supportive Housing on Maryland’s Eastern Shore is 116, with 150 people. A spokesperson for Maryland DHCD said in an email to WMDT that 100% of HUD funding for both the Lower Shore and Mid Shore CoCs goes to permanent supportive housing.

On Maryland’s Lower Shore, shelters are bracing for a surge in guests who need their services.

“It’s going to get worse,” Salisbury Christian Shelter Executive Director J. Anthony Dickerson said. “You’re going to have families that are going to be sleeping in their cars, sleeping under the bridge. They’re going to be couch surfing.”

Debra Rossi, the executive director at Help and Outreach Point of Entry, said federal cuts “trickle down” and could plunge the entire community into a humanitarian crisis.

“You’ll just have this higher level of people now at risk and in crisis that impacts your hospitals, your schools, the mental health [services],” Rossi said. “It’s not enough to pay somebody’s electric bill. Can they pay it next month? Can they pay it next year? Are they not buying their life-saving medication because they have to pay this bill this month? When I say humanitarian crisis, it’s more than someone just sleeping outside. It’s, you know, people going hungry, people dying because they don’t have access to medication or medical care.”

Officials at HUD say the proposed changes would focus investment on recovery and self-sufficiency, improve outcomes through increased competitiveness, and reduce fraud and waste.

“The ‘housing first’ experiment failed Americans by warehousing the vulnerable without results,” said Secretary Scott Turner in a statement released by HUD. “This ideology promised to end homelessness. Instead, billions of taxpayer dollars were spent while homelessness increased to record levels. Housing alone will not solve a crisis driven by addiction and mental illness. Under President Trump’s leadership, HUD is making necessary reforms to put recovery first.”

While the focus of this year’s CoC NOFO is on transitional housing, such as shelters like HOPE, Meister said that assistance with permanent housing pathways helps those who recover from being unhoused maintain their status. Dickerson and Rossi both said that, should the changes go into effect, they will have to do more with less.

“So already the number of calls that we’re getting and the referrals we do to help people gather information, it will be overwhelming,” Rossi said. “It will just be debilitating, overwhelming, which is sort of the definition of a crisis.”

For the most vulnerable, officials say these cuts could leave them with nowhere to go.

DeJuan Abdul Akbar stays with HOPE, occasionally working as a handyman. He said places like HOPE mean everything to him, adding that HOPE served over 80 people in a single day.

“It’s more than just me, it helps everybody that comes here.” Abdul Akbar said. “I wouldn’t have been able to get a job or even have a chance of getting a job if it weren’t for this place.”

If the changes go into effect, Dickerson said it will be up to the community to find creative ways to address the issue.

“Homelessness is really not a problem for the government to fix, but it’s a community problem for us to solve,” he said.

Meister said Maryland has joined several other states in challenging the proposed changes in court. However, she said some impacts of the proposed changes could be felt as early as later this year, and if accepted, cuts could start in April of 2027.