Please see below for all email updates sent in May 2025. Feel free to reach out to Katie at kmeyerscott at homelesslaw.org with any questions or to be added to the email list!

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From: Katie Meyer Scott
Sent: Friday, May 2, 2025 1:58 PM
To: Index <index@homelesslaw.org>
Subject: Updates 5/2/2025

Hi all,

This is a hard update to write – my heart is heavy with the human-caused suffering here and around the world (and as such – content warning: please be mindful in reading this email). We don’t talk about it enough in the youth homelessness space but the pointless horror of continual displacement for people trying to survive outside is on my mind this week – the 100+ people being forced from Deschutes National Forest with no resources and nowhere to go, the excellent and devastating reporting by Real Change in Seattle re: the particular cruelty of sweeps in severe weather. And our leaders offer no real solutions to any of it OR they seem to be working as hard they can to make it all worse. I have a lump in my throat and a tightness in my chest that is ever present. I know I am speaking to the choir.

For those that are new to this list, past emails are stored here by month: https://youthhomelessnessindex.org/blog/. And for all, if you ever want off this list – please do not hesitate to email me with a quick request to be removed. No hard feelings – we need to curate what we consume these days!

I have been trying for a week to sort and prioritize this email (what do we need to know or focus on right now), and to include things that we can do something about. I somehow ended up with mostly big picture things but I think they all hit on areas where we need to think ahead and prepare. Here goes:

1. The E.O. re: nonprofit orgs that wasn’t…yet: There is concern that if this administration can’t accomplish what it wants to via withholding funding to nonprofit organizations, they will try to target nonprofit orgs tax exempt status (which could have a wide-ranging impact on an orgs ability to fundraise – most foundations only fund tax-exempt orgs). This article describes why there is concern and, of course, the president threatens it on a regular basis. National Council of Nonprofits put out a good myths v. reality about what the executive branch can or can’t do here but this is a good time for nonprofit organizations to ensure i’s are dotted and t’s are crossed and that you make connections with local legal counsel. Here is a  compilation of organizations that represent non-profits (let me know if you know of any others!) and if you can’t find someone via this list, you can reach out to me and we can try to find someone via our In-Housing Counsel program.
2. Rule of Law concerns: While they are opinion pieces, I think these articles lay out the issues well – this one is a quick read and this is a long one. People often ask me what tools courts have to enforce orders – it really boils down to 1. attorney sanctions, 2. civil contempt (officials and agencies could be fined daily, and then imprisoned if they don’t pay), 3. charge admin officials with criminal contempt. But carrying out #2 or #3 is ultimately the responsibility of the executive branch (Dept of Justice oversees U.S. Marshalls and federal prosecutors; a private atty could be appointed by a judge but president has pardon power, etc.).  The other questions is: what do we do about it? I think this is an individual question and a collective one. There are some situations where all we can do is pressure/force our elected representatives to hold the executive branch accountable (for instance, if they keep away funding even after a final order to give it back – though I would thoroughly enjoy figuring out how to garnish the federal gov’t to enforce!). BUT if they refuse to follow court orders that affect how we do our work, we can still operate our programs in a way that is lawful and we can organize as a sector to provide cover to those more at risk and apply pressure at all levels of government. A recent learning of mine is that during the Great Depression it wasn’t until state and local governments started pressuring the fed’l gov’t for relief that $$ started flowing – and local government only started pressuring federal when they were overwhelmed with people demanding it at local and state offices. What would that look like in our sector? And frankly, why haven’t we already been doing it in the past 40 years while homelessness has gotten worse and worse?
3. A related issue to rule of law is that this administration is doing everything it can to ensure that there will be absolutely no federal help or support in protecting civil rights related to housing (unless, I suppose, you are a white straight Christian person who has been refused housing based on whiteness or straightness or your religion?). I bring this up because this is really going to limit the legal sector’s ability to litigate these issues effectively and property owners are going to be emboldened to discriminate. Specifically, this EO instructs the Attorney General to repeal or amend all regulations and to deprioritize enforcement of statutes and regulations (incl. the Fair Housing Act and Civil Rights Act) that implicate disparate-impact liability. At its very simplified core, proving disparate (unequal) impact on a protected class is how you can show discrimination without having to have some kind of written or recorded proof of a landlord actually saying something racist or sexist. Of course, the EO can’t automatically change laws or case law, and repealing and amending regulations does require a process (though the admin, via another EO, is trying to claim that they don’t have to go through a public notice and commenting process for some regs). Accessing housing is already so hard, and despite it being inadequate to the scale of the problem, the affirmative enforcement of fair housing laws by the federal government was a really important tool that is now gone. A few things you can do – get familiar with state and local fair housing laws and if your state or local government has an enforcement mechanism for those laws, get familiar with those and USE THEM if you experience shady business yourself or in helping someone access housing.

Next week’s email will be a little less big picture and more into the details. Similar to the CoC grant agreement analysis we shared recently, we are working on some analysis/guidance related to potential changes to RHY applications or awards (BCP, TLP, MGH, SOP, etc. – this applies to you if know these acronyms; if not, you can blessedly ignore), as well as some issues we’re seeing pop off in relation to state and local funding (including CDBG funds).

Until then, hang in there. We’ll talk more soon!

-Katie