L.A. County officials are concerned that major cuts could be coming to federal money that houses people in the region following a meeting with a high-ranking Trump administration appointee and a new executive order from the president.
This comes as county leaders say they're already facing a perfect storm of local, state and federal funding reductions to the social safety net.
President Donald Trump’s order last Thursday calls for prioritizing housing grants to states and local agencies based on whether they’re enforcing — to the maximum level legally allowed — bans on urban camping, loitering, open use of illegal drugs and urban squatting.
A meeting two days earlier underscored that L.A.’s housing funding is at risk, county officials say. At the meeting, a Trump appointee at the federal housing agency said he would be recommending the president “defund” Los Angeles, according to Amy Perkins, a county official at the meeting. The appointee emphasized that he believes L.A. is failing to do enough enforcement, Perkins said.
In an interview with LAist, Perkins said the comments were by William Spencer, the regional administrator for California and other states at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. The department funds billions each year in housing subsidies and services across L.A. County.
According to Perkins, Spencer told her, “Mr. Trump will make all the decisions here. But I just want you to know, when he asks me for my recommendation — and he will — I will tell him to defund Los Angeles.”
Spencer did express support for continuing funding for housing specific populations, Perkins said: veterans, women with children, people with disabilities and existing housing voucher programs for youth.
But Spencer said L.A. was housing people who don’t need it, and disagreed with drug and alcohol use being considered a disability — saying drug use is “bad choices” and not a disability, according to Perkins.
Perkins, who is the top housing and homelessness advisor to L.A. County Supervisor Lindsey Horvath, said two staff members from her office were taking notes during the meeting about what was said.
Spencer has not responded to voicemails from LAist requesting comment. A HUD spokesperson said the department “has not made any official comment on the matter.”
Perkins said a theme in Spencer’s remarks was his view that L.A. doesn’t want to enforce laws. She said Spencer didn’t specify what exactly he wanted to see L.A. do differently on enforcement.
Perkins said she noted that citations are being written in L.A. for people being on streets, and asked what enforcement would look like for Spencer. He did not have an answer, she said.
“There wasn't something that he said, even when I tried to talk through enforcement,” Perkins told LAist. “I literally was waiting with [a] pen in my hand for one small suggestion. There was none.”
Spencer was critical of housing subsidies for people who use drugs, according to Perkins, saying L.A. wants “to house people who make bad choices and use drugs.”
According to Perkins, Spencer also said people need to work and L.A. keeps subsidizing housing for people who don’t really need it.
Perkins said Spencer’s remarks underscored the risk of federal funding cuts to local housing subsidies — on top of known cuts planned to programs — and that it’s important to prepare.
“I don’t think it can be understated how much all of the cuts that we’re seeing from this federal government will impact homelessness directly,” she told LAist.
Early in the meeting, Perkins said, Spencer expressed a desire for a mutual understanding that the country is $36 trillion in debt and needs to balance the budget.
Perkins said she responded that “we don’t think it should be balanced on the backs of the most oppressed, marginalized people in the country.”
Californians pay more in federal taxes than they receive in federal funding, according to an often-cited analysis by the public policy research institute of the State University of New York. California paid $72 billion more than it received — the largest amount of any state — in the 2022 federal fiscal year, that analysis found.
Last Thursday, Perkins briefly mentioned the meeting with Spencer while she spoke at a live-streamed county discussion about upcoming funding cuts for housing and homelessness. LAist then followed up with requests to Spencer, HUD and Perkins for more details. Perkins ultimately agreed to an interview.
The potential impact
Trump’s executive order says it’s aimed at making communities safer by restoring public order and helping shifting people into longer-term institutional treatment.
“Endemic vagrancy, disorderly behavior, sudden confrontations, and violent attacks have made our cities unsafe,” the order states. “Surrendering our cities and citizens to disorder and fear is neither compassionate to the homeless nor other citizens.”
The county’s chief executive says the executive order could cut funding for homeless services and housing in the county, which flows both through local housing authorities and federal Continuum of Care funding through the L.A. Homeless Services Authority (LAHSA).
“That executive order, again, looks like there will be implications and ramifications for the work that we do in our homelessness services — basically that that funding will be cut or reduced in some shape, form or fashion,” said county CEO Fesia Davenport during a public presentation to county supervisors on Tuesday.
“We are looking at what I call a tidal wave of profound impacts, all hitting at the same time,” she said of the overall effects of federal funding cuts to Medicaid, the costs incurred from the January wildfires and the county’s $4 billion settlement of thousands of sexual abuse claims dating back decades.
Davenport said officials are currently preparing for how to disentangle federal money from county funding of housing and services in the event it's cut.
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What the feds fund
HUD funding supported housing for about 259,000 people in L.A. County last year, according to the department’s data. That included about 176,000 people on housing choice vouchers.
Additionally, federal funding through HUD’s Continuum of Care program for homeless services currently serves over 10,000 housing units across L.A. County, according to LAHSA. That $220 million this fiscal year supports 9,204 units of permanent housing with services — 8,444 of which receive funding to support their rent — as well as 683 units of interim housing, according to LAHSA.
LAist reporting intern Vitus Larrieu contributed reporting to this article.
