A federal appeals court has rebuffed a Trump administration effort to dictate how homeless service organizations in Los Angeles can seek millions of dollars in funding from the Department of Housing and Urban Development.<\/p>\n
The ruling released Thursday also frees up federal funding that already had been approved but not distributed to homeless service organizations in Los Angeles. <\/p>\n
At issue was whether the Los Angles Homeless Services Authority could submit an application on behalf of dozens of organizations seeking $239 million in federal funds.<\/p>\n
In a 2-1 decision posted Thursday, the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals largely upheld a district court ruling<\/a> that restored LAHSA as the applicant for the organizations seeking federal funds.<\/p>\n HUD suspended LAHSA in June, citing a record of mismanagement, and said organizations should apply directly to the government for the 2026-27 funding cycle. The initial application deadline was the end of August.<\/p>\n LAHSA sued to block the move. District Court Judge David O. Carter issued a preliminary injunction<\/a> finding that HUD acted arbitrarily and capriciously and ordered it to restore LAHSA\u2019s authority. He set a trial date in February.<\/p>\n HUD then appealed, seeking a stay. <\/p>\n In its bluntly worded decision, the appellate panel denied the department\u2019s request, finding that HUD \u201cchose to suspend LAHSA at a time when it would leave the Los Angeles region particularly vulnerable\u201d with ill effects on \u201cvulnerable populations, critical programs and ongoing services.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt is likely that its plan is unworkable and, at this late stage, extremely difficult if not virtually impossible to implement,\u201d the decision said.<\/p>\n Stephanie Graves, chair of the LAHSA Commission, applauded the court\u2019s ruling. \u201cFor the thousands of people experiencing homelessness or working to rebuild their lives, the systems and funding that connect them to housing and services cannot simply stop,\u201d Graves said in a statement. \u201cToday\u2019s decision allows that work to continue while the larger issues are resolved.\u201d <\/p>\n The new deadline to apply for HUD funding is Oct. 14, and LAHSA\u2019s Interim Chief Executive Officer Gita O\u2019Neill said the agency is \u201cmoving at full speed\u201d to meet that deadline.<\/p>\n In addition to leaving LAHSA as the applicant for this funding cycle, the order also requires HUD to release funds from last year\u2019s grants<\/a> that had been approved but not formally released by the department, forcing about a dozen Los Angeles organizations to operate for months without reimbursement.<\/p>\n \u201cToday\u2019s 9th Circuit decision is welcome news for the survivors of domestic violence and their children who depend on Jewish Family Service LA\u2019s Hope Transitional Shelter,\u201d the group said in a statement. \u201cBut a court ruling alone does not solve our funding crisis.\u201d<\/p>\n Since April 1, the shelter has operated without $300,000 in promised government funding, covering half its budget. <\/p>\n \u201cHUD\u2019s appeal is still underway, and until these funds actually reach providers, the situation at our Hope Transitional Shelter remains critical,\u201d the statement said.<\/p>\n The order also restored LAHSA\u2019s other core functions \u2014 operating the homeless database and the housing matching system and conducting the annual homeless count. But the reprieve is only temporary<\/a>. As directed in Carter\u2019s ruling, the board of the federally mandated committee that has perennially selected LAHSA for those functions issued a request for proposals from other applicants. <\/p>\n Los Angeles County, which last year diverted its more than $300 million in homeless funds from LAHSA to the new Department of Homeless Services and Housing, applied to take over all those functions.<\/p>\n Thursday\u2019s decision was signed by justices Jacqueline H. Nguyen,<\/a> an Obama appointee and Roopali H. Desai,<\/a> a Biden appointee. Trump appointee Ryan D. Nelso<\/a> dissented.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A federal appeals court has rebuffed a Trump administration effort to dictate how homeless service organizations in Los…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":475130,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[3754,6848,6246,4110,186773,1011,9500,48,52,51,6390,47,50,49,63,186774,1768,20897,3025,2429,2335],"class_list":["post-475129","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-applicant","tag-decision","tag-department","tag-funding","tag-homeless-fund","tag-housing","tag-hud","tag-la","tag-la-headlines","tag-la-news","tag-lahsa","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-headlines","tag-los-angeles-news","tag-los-angeles-times","tag-ongoing-service","tag-organization","tag-ruling","tag-statement","tag-thursday","tag-today"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/475129","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=475129"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/475129\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/475130"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=475129"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=475129"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=475129"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}