opposes offshore wind energy development<\/a> and supports fishing deregulation. <\/p>\nWhitmire has made addressing homelessness a central pillar of his mayoral administration. The lynchpin of his plan \u2014 a 222-bed residential treatment center in East Downtown \u2014 currently depends on about $40 million in one-time federal funding for its first three years of operation. <\/p>\n
City officials have said they will seek continuing funding for the facility from a range of potential sources, including the federal government. <\/p>\n
“Red Door Consulting was retained to help the City of Houston to better understand the new administration’s policy positions regarding homelessness,” a spokesperson for Whitmire’s office said in a statement. “Red Door Consulting’s work for the City of Houston focused solely on the administration and relevant departments.”<\/p>\n
Whitmire leans into \u2018pragmatism over partisanship’ as Trump administration shifts approach to homelessness<\/p>\n
After five decades as a Democratic member of the Texas Legislature, Whitmire has leaned on his warm relationship with Republicans in Austin to secure funding for Houston. He won $32 million in recovery funds from Texas Gov. Greg Abbott after Hurricane Beryl and the derecho wind event in 2024. Whitmire also celebrated more than $200 million in direct appropriations to the city from the state legislature during its last session in 2025. <\/p>\n
Trump’s Secretary of Housing and Urban Development \u2014 Scott Turner, a former member of the Texas House \u2014 has made two public appearances with Whitmire to tout the use of about $315 million in disaster recovery funds for a number of initiatives, including the homeless service center in East Downtown. <\/p>\n
“The mayor has often emphasized pragmatism over partisanship,” Brandon Rottinghaus, political science professor at the University of Houston, said. “Cities are competing for limited state and federal resources, and lobbyists who understand the priorities of the powers that be in Austin or in D.C. and that decision-making process may offer advantages in navigating that competition.”<\/p>\n
Under Turner, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) has attempted to overhaul the way it funds local policies addressing homelessness. In Houston, that could mean changes to how the Coalition for the Homeless allocates about $70 million in annual funding from HUD.<\/p>\n
Local officials attribute the reduction in Harris County’s homeless population \u2014 from more than 8,000 in 2011 to about 3,000 in recent years \u2014 to a “housing-first” approach, in which service providers seek long-term housing for homeless people. <\/p>\n
About 57% of the Houston area\u2019s federal allocation supports permanent supportive housing for formerly homeless people \u2014 underwriting nearly 7,000 beds as of 2025. HUD has sought to cap such support at 30% across the country. The effort faces an ongoing legal challenge from multiple states, including New York and Pennsylvania. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe housing-first model is a failed model,\u201d Turner told reporters during a visit to Houston in June<\/a>. \u201cThe Bible says to put the axe to the root. What does that mean? What is the root cause of homelessness? Mental illness, drug addiction. And so we want to make sure that we not only house people, we treat people to get them healed and transformed and then back to a life of self-sufficiency.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Dominic Anthony Walsh \/ Houston Public Media President Trump\u2019s HUD Secretary Scott Turner speaks with Mayor John Whitmire…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":468148,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[3766,3222,56,58,12885,3769,57,159280,4476,223,3311,159281],"class_list":["post-468147","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-houston","tag-city-of-houston","tag-housing","tag-houston","tag-houston-headlines","tag-houston-homeless","tag-houston-homelessness","tag-houston-news","tag-hud-secretary-scott-turner","tag-mayor-john-whitmire","tag-news","tag-president-donald-trump","tag-red-door-consulting"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/468147","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=468147"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/468147\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/468148"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=468147"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=468147"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=468147"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"U.S.](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/IMG_5754-1-1000x667.jpg\")
<\/p>\n