How to resolve AdBlock issue? LAKE COUNTY, Calif. — As Thanksgiving approaches, the federal government has issued significant cuts to homeless housing funding, prompting 20 states — including California — to file a lawsuit on Tuesday to block the move.
On Nov. 14, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, or HUD, issued a notice of funding opportunity for its Continuum of Care, or CoC program, which is designed to support nonprofits and local governments in efforts to end homelessness.
The new policy caps the share of funds that can be used for permanent housing, a change that could put an estimated 170,000 people at risk of homelessness nationwide.
Last year, California CoCs spent about 90% of its total $683 million in funding on permanent housing projects. Under the new policy, only up to 30% can be used for permanent supportive housing and rapid rehousing.
Gov. Gavin Newsom and Attorney General Rob Bonta, along with a multistate coalition of 20 states, filed a lawsuit on Tuesday against the Trump administration, “challenging abrupt changes that would cut outgoing support from established homeless housing programs," the governor’s office said in its announcement, calling the federal decision “callous and unlawful.”
“The lawsuit argues that the changes are illegal because they alter funding eligibility without authorization by Congress and are not supported by evidence or reason,” the announcement said.
In a Nov. 19 letter to the state’s congressional delegation, California State Association of Counties Chief Executive Officer Graham Knaus called the policy change “dramatic” which would displace tens of thousands of individuals from their homes and reverse progress in efforts at every level.
Counties, as direct recipients of CoC funding, would feel the impact immediately.
“The proposed policy will reverberate and have detrimental effects throughout the populations counties serve, including older adults, families, veterans, people with disabilities, transition-aged youth — as well as households connected to Medi-Cal, CalFresh, CalWORKs, and child welfare systems — and could place 26,000 people in California at risk of losing housing,” Knaus wrote.
The Governor's Office called these cuts “needlessly putting American families at risk.”
Since 2016, the state law has required all housing programs to adopt the “housing first” approach which prioritizes placing people into permanent housing without preconditions such as employment or completion of treatment.
However, the Trump Administration considered the approach failed, ordering federal agencies including HUD to take actions including “ending support for ‘housing first’ policies that deprioritize accountability.”
The Governor’s Office said California’s Housing First policy and permanent supportive housing programs have “proven successful.”
“These shifts not only threaten existing programs — they jeopardize the braided system of federal, state, and local investments that keep California’s homelessness response viable,” the Governor’s Office said.
For Lake County, permanent housing remains one of the most important indicators of local progress in addressing homelessness.
From 2020 to 2025, the Lake County Continuum of Care touched 1,378 unhoused individuals and helped 41% or 575 of them get permanently housed, according to District 2 Supervisor and Lake County CoC Chair Bruno Sabatier at an unhoused crisis town hall in September.
“That is an outstanding percentage… an absolute win for the CoC and its partners,” he said.
In rapid rehousing, the local CoC worked with 274 individuals, and 58% or 158 of them have found permanent homes, Sabatier said.
“People don't need to show that they're ready for housing. You are ready for housing just because you exist. You don’t need to graduate to housing,” Redwood Community Services Integrated Health Director Sage Wolf said at the town hall when talking about the “Housing First” approach in her work. “Ultimately housing is the thing that solves homelessness.”
Data from the Public Policy Institute of California shows that from 2023 to 2024, Lake County CoC saw a 31.3% increase in its total homeless population, including a 68% rise in unsheltered homelessness and a 15.3% decline in sheltered homelessness.
The 2025 point-in-time count recorded 362 unhoused individuals in Lake County.
In 2023, 12 deaths among Lake County’s unhoused residents were reported, followed by 14 in 2024 and 14 so far in 2025, Sabatier said in an email to Lake County News in September.
Email staff writer Lingzi Chen at
