Opinion

HUD’s homelessness reforms put human lives ahead of housing bureaucracy

Chronic homelessness rose 81% since 2013 despite soaring spending under the previous strategy

By Michele Steeb Fox News

Published September 28, 2026 5:00am EDT

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Mamdani shifts NYPD away from responding to homeless encampment calls

Retired NYPD Sergeant Joseph Imperatrice reacts to Mamdani's push to bar police officers from responding to homeless encampment calls and warns about the rising homeless population in New York City.

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On Sept. 16, the First Circuit Court of Appeals cleared the way for the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) to move forward with desperately needed reforms to the nation’s homelessness system.

After months of litigation by the Homeless Industrial Complex to repeatedly block these reforms, the decision allows HUD to redefine success and fund the programs that generate the greatest success in moving the homeless toward recovery, restoration and self-sufficiency.

And not a moment too soon.

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For more than a decade, federal homelessness policy has centered heavily on permanent housing placement, while the measures used to define and count homelessness have often obscured important differences between who is counted as homeless and who is being served through homelessness programs.

An unhoused individual rests on a bench in Reynolds Square on Tuesday, Oct. 21, 2025. (Richard Burkhart/Savannah Morning News / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images)

Success will now be measured by whether people are getting better: recovering, working, reconnecting and reclaiming their lives.

Getting here required that HUD officials confront a series of gimmicks that helped sustain the old system — promises, definitions and measures of success that painted a very different picture than what was happening on America’s streets.

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