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Trump administration plans mass firing at office that funds homelessness programs
A woman gathers possessions to take before a homeless encampment was cleaned up in San Francisco in 2023. The Trump administration plans to cut most federal staff in the HUD office that funds homelessness programs at a time when the number of people in the U.S. without housing is at a record high.
Jeff Chiu/AP
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Jeff Chiu/AP
The federal office that funds housing and other support for homeless people across the country is slated to shrink dramatically, a prospect that advocates warn would make record-high homelessness even worse.
The Office of Community and Planning Development, within the Department of Housing and Urban Development, is slated to lose 84% of its staff, according to a document seen by NPR. That target is the deepest of any office in the agency.
“That proposed cut is massive. And the potential for adverse impact at the community level and at the national level is also massive,” said Ann Oliva, who spent a decade at HUD and is now CEO at the National Alliance to End Homelessness.
Have information you want to share about ongoing changes at HUD? NPR’s Jennifer Ludden can be contacted through encrypted communications on Signal at jenniferludden.20.
The same office also funds disaster recovery and programs that help local communities build affordable housing.
Overall, Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency, an entity known as DOGE and overseen by Elon Musk, plans to reduce HUD’s staffing by about half.
The Community and Planning Development office at HUD disperses more than $3.6 billion in federal funding for rental assistance, mental health and substance use treatment, and outreach to try and get those living outside into shelter or housing. “It’s the “backbone” of local communities’ response to homelessness, Oliva said, “in blue states and red states alike.”
Cutting so much staff would mean firing not only people at headquarters in Washington, D.C., but also those in field offices around the country, she said. And that means it would likely take longer to get funding to the thousands of local nonprofits who provide housing and other support.
“Grants need to be processed,” said one HUD employee, speaking on condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation. They said the prospect of major staff cuts, combined with deferred resignations, are a “huge worry” that threatens to disrupt work.
So far, HUD has not addressed such concerns in detail.
“HUD is following direction from the administration while also ensuring the department continues to deliver on its critical functions,” a HUD spokesperson said in a statement. They said that includes the agency’s “mission to serve rural, tribal and urban communities and statutory responsibilities.”
There’s concern about whether homelessness funding will be sent out as usual
The Biden administration approved the next wave of homelessness funding in its last days in power in January. The money has not yet been distributed. Advocates say it could be taking longer simply because of the transition to a new administration. But there’s also worry that it’s more than that.
In late January, the Trump administration issued a memo freezing spending on federal loans and grants. That was rescinded, and then paused in court after a legal challenge, but a federal judge found some funds were still frozen.
A lawsuit challenging the freeze noted that many local nonprofits that partner with federal agencies rely heavily on government funding, and the loss of it could be devastating. In a recent memo, the National Council of Nonprofits said many groups were still having trouble accessing funds, “causing them to stop programs, furlough employees, and question multi-year budgets.”
“I’m increasingly concerned that money is paused in a way that’s illegal,” said Peggy Bailey, a former senior adviser at HUD who’s now with the left-leaning Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.
She also said this pause, and the proposed staff cuts, appear to be part of a larger push to shrink HUD. Republicans in Congress have proposed major budget cuts for the agency. The conservative agenda laid out by Trump allies in Project 2025 calls for moving some HUD functions to other agencies, states or localities.
Republicans want to change how federal homelessness funding is spent
There’s also been growing Republican opposition to the way federal homelessness funding is spent.
Current longtime bipartisan policy prioritizes getting people into housing and then providing support for those who want addiction or mental health treatment. Supporters say it has a proven track record of keeping people off the street.
But Republicans argue that this policy, or what’s called Housing First, has actually made homelessness worse.
Project 2025 calls for ending it. The Cicero Institute, a conservative Texas think tank founded by a Trump ally, has been pushing states to require substance abuse and mental health treatment as a condition for federally funded housing. Researchers at the conservative Manhattan Institute recently proposed shifting homelessness funding to a block-grant system, giving states greater control over how to spend it.
Whatever happens, advocate Ann Oliva said this is a crucial time for tackling homelessness. A record number of people in the U.S. struggle to afford rent or mortgage. And she would expect that number to rise if the office in charge of homelessness prevention was effectively gutted.
“Possibly, construction would stop on affordable housing that’s already in the pipeline,” she said. “Ultimately, I think the risk is that we will see people falling into homelessness even quicker than we’ve already seen over the last few years.”
new video loaded: What Trump Told Us About the ICE Shooting
By Zolan Kanno-Youngs, Alexandra Ostasiewicz, Nikolay Nikolov and Coleman Lowndes
January 8, 2026
Good morning. You’re reading the Up First newsletter. Subscribe here to get it delivered to your inbox, and listen to the Up First podcast for all the news you need to start your day.
Today’s top stories
An Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer shot and killed 37-year-old Renee Nicole Good, a Minneapolis woman, yesterday. Multiple observers captured the shooting on video, and community members demanded accountability. Minnesota law enforcement officials and the FBI are investigating the fatal shooting, which the Trump administration says was an act of self-defense. Meanwhile, the mayor has accused the officer of reckless use of power and demanded that ICE get out of Minneapolis.
People demonstrate during a vigil at the site where a woman was shot and killed by an immigration officer earlier in the day in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on Jan. 7, 2026. An immigration officer in Minneapolis shot dead a woman on Wednesday, triggering outrage from local leaders even as President Trump claimed the officer acted in self-defense. Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey deemed the government’s allegation that the woman was attacking federal agents “bullshit,” and called on Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers conducting a second day of mass raids to leave Minneapolis.
Kerem Yucel/AFP via Getty Images
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Kerem Yucel/AFP via Getty Images
- 🎧 Caitlin Callenson recorded the shooting and says officers gave Good multiple conflicting instructions while she was in her vehicle. Callenson says Good was already unresponsive when officers pulled her from the car. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem claims the officer was struck by the vehicle and acted in self-defense. In the video NPR reviewed, the officer doesn’t seem to be hit and was seen walking after he fired the shots, NPR’s Meg Anderson tells Up First. Anderson says it has been mostly peaceful in Minneapolis, but there is a lot of anger and tension because protesters want ICE out of the city.
U.S. forces yesterday seized a Russian-flagged oil tanker in the north Atlantic between Iceland and Britain after a two-week chase. The tanker was originally headed to Venezuela, but it changed course to avoid the U.S. ships. This action comes as the Trump administration begins releasing new information about its plans for Venezuela’s oil industry.
- 🎧 It has been a dramatic week for U.S. operations in Venezuela, NPR’s Greg Myre says, prompting critics to ask if a real plan for the road ahead exists. Secretary of State Marco Rubio responded that the U.S. does have a strategy to stabilize Venezuela, and much of it seems to involve oil. Rubio said the U.S. would take control of up to 50 million barrels of oil from the country. Myre says the Trump administration appears to have a multipronged strategy that involves taking over the country’s oil, selling it on the world market and pressuring U.S. oil companies to enter Venezuela.
Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. released new dietary guidelines for Americans yesterday that focus on promoting whole foods, proteins and healthy fats. The guidance, which he says aims to “revolutionize our food culture,” comes with a new food pyramid, which replaces the current MyPlate symbol.
- 🎧 “I’m very disappointed in the new pyramid,” Christopher Gardner, a nutrition expert who was on the Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee, tells NPR’s Allison Aubrey. Gardner says the new food structure, which features red meat and saturated fats at the top, contradicts decades of evidence and research. Poor eating habits and the standard American diet are widely considered to cause chronic disease. Aubrey says the new guidelines alone won’t change people’s eating habits, but they will be highly influential. This guidance will shape the offerings in school meals and on military bases, and determine what’s allowed in federal nutrition programs.
Special series
Trump has tried to bury the truth of what happened on Jan. 6, 2021. NPR built a visual archive of the attack on the Capitol, showing exactly what happened through the lenses of the people who were there. “Chapter 4: The investigation” shows how federal investigators found the rioters and built the largest criminal case in U.S. history.
Political leaders, including Trump, called for rioters to face justice for their actions on Jan. 6. This request came because so few people were arrested during the attack. The extremists who led the riot remained free, and some threatened further violence. The government launched the largest federal investigation in American history, resulting in the arrest of over 1,500 individuals from all 50 states. The most serious cases were made by prosecutors against leaders of the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers. For their roles in planning the attack against the U.S., some extremists were found guilty of seditious conspiracy. Take a look at the Jan. 6 prosecutions by the numbers, including the highest sentence received.
To learn more, explore NPR’s database of federal criminal cases from Jan. 6. You can also see more of NPR’s reporting on the topic.
Deep dive
U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during a news conference in the Roosevelt Room of the White House in Washington, DC.
Andrew Harnik/Getty Images
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Andrew Harnik/Getty Images
U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during a news conference in the Roosevelt Room of the White House in Washington, DC.
Andrew Harnik/Getty Images
Trump takes 325 milligrams of daily aspirin, which is four times the recommended 81 milligrams of low-dose aspirin used for cardiovascular disease prevention. The president revealed this detail in an interview with The Wall Street Journal published last week. The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force recommends that anyone over 60 not start a daily dose of aspirin to prevent cardiovascular disease if they don’t already have an underlying problem. The group said it’s reasonable to stop preventive aspirin in people already taking it around age 75 years. Trump is 79. This is what you should know about aspirin and cardiac health:
- 💊 Doctors often prescribe the low dose of aspirin because there’s no benefit to taking a higher dose, according to a large study published in 2021.
- 💊 Some people, including adults who have undergone heart bypass surgery and those who have had a heart attack, should take the advised dose of the drug for their entire life.
- 💊 While safer than other blood thinners, the drug — even at low doses — raises the risk of bleeding in the stomach and brain. But these adverse events are unlikely to cause death.
3 things to know before you go
When an ant pupa has a deadly, incurable infection, it sends out a signal that tells worker ants to unpack it from its cocoon and disinfect it, a process that results in its death.
Christopher D. Pull/ISTA
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Christopher D. Pull/ISTA
- Young, terminally ill ants will send out an altruistic “kill me” signal to worker ants, according to a study in the journal Nature Communications. With this strategy, the sick ants sacrifice themselves for the good of their colony.
- In this week’s Far-Flung Postcards series, you can spot a real, lone California sequoia tree in the Parc des Buttes Chaumont in Paris. Napoleon III transformed the park from a former landfill into one of the French capital’s greenest escapes.
- The ACLU and several authors have sued Utah over its “sensitive materials” book law, which has now banned 22 books in K-12 schools. Among the books on the ban list are The Perks of Being a Wallflower and Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West. (via KUER)
This newsletter was edited by Suzanne Nuyen.
new video loaded: Minnesota Governor Condemns ICE Shooting
transcript
transcript
Minnesota Governor Condemns ICE Shooting
Governor Tim Walz of Minnesota slammed the fatal shooting of a woman by an immigration agent. President Trump said that the agents had acted in self-defense.
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This morning, we learned that an ICE officer shot and killed someone in Minneapolis. We have been warning for weeks that the Trump administration’s dangerous, sensationalized operations are a threat to our public safety, that someone was going to get hurt. Just yesterday, I said exactly that. What we’re seeing is the consequences of governance designed to generate fear, headlines and conflict. It’s governing by reality TV. And today, that recklessness cost someone their life.
By Jiawei Wang
January 8, 2026
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Video: Minnesota Governor Condemns ICE Shooting
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