Three members of President Donald Trump\u2019s cabinet, including Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., announced homelessness policy guidelines for local governments at a news conference in National City on Wednesday.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Trump administration\u2019s \u201cBest Practices Toolkit\u201d suggests leaders steer away from housing-first and housing-only models, which Kennedy called \u201cperversions\u201d that have \u201cstolen hundreds of billions from us over the past four years.\u201d<\/p>\n
Instead, the guidelines suggest local governments\u00a0put funding toward treatment-first programs that prioritize faith-based organizations such as the South County Lighthouse, which Kennedy said \u201care doing it right.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cToday we are announcing a toolkit that will allow local municipalities and states that are receiving federal money, and then paying out to contractors, to actually evaluate whether those contractors are doing the things we need them to do,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
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Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS), Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., Secretary of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Scott Turner and Donnie Dee President and CEO of the San Diego Rescue Mission listed as Sara Carter, Director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, spoke to reporters about the Best Practices Toolkit at the South County Lighthouse on Wednesday.\u00a0 (Nelvin C. Cepeda \/ The San Diego Union-Tribune)<\/p>\n
The event was held at the San Diego Rescue Mission\u2019s South County Lighthouse, which opened in 2024 and was the first homeless shelter in National City.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Kennedy\u2019s announcement comes amid the Trump administration\u2019s continued attempts to block federal grants from being dispersed to programs it deems to be part diversity, equity and inclusion or housing-first models.\u00a0<\/p>\n
In May 2025, the city of San Diego joined a lawsuit with nearly 70 other cities, counties and regional authorities asking the courts to allow them to continue to use previously approved grants from the U.S. Housing and Urban Development Department.\u00a0<\/p>\n
A federal judge placed an injunction on the Trump administration\u2019s new conditions for releasing funds a month after the lawsuit was filed. It\u2019s currently under appeal in the U.S. 9th Circuit Court.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThe City understands that addressing homelessness is not a one-size fits all approach. At the same time, housing remains a critical part of addressing homelessness,\u201d San Diego spokesperson Matt Hoffman said in a statement. \u201cWe believe communities need a full range of tools \u2014 including housing, shelter, treatment, outreach and supportive services that promote stability and self-sufficiency.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Housing-first vs. treatment-first programs have been at the center of debates around homelessness for years, but have regained prominence recently. In June, Encinitas declined to request $3.9 million in funding from the state over concerns \u201cstrings attached\u201d related to housing-first mandates.\u00a0<\/p>\n
El Cajon also rejected state funding for its HomeStart program. It had previously received about $1 million a year from California\u2019s Permanent Local Housing Allocation Program. The city instead opted to spend more than $700,000 of its own money on treatment-first programs, including San Diego Rescue Mission\u2019s South County Lighthouse.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe encourage everybody, state, regional authorities, special-use districts, counties, cities, continuing care agencies, doesn\u2019t matter what level, to prioritize treatment first or treatment with housing,\u201d said HUD adviser Robert Marbut Jr. after the news conference.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Marbut added that he would encourage communities to accept state funding, but not if it includes a mandate to fund housing-first programs. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Three members of President Donald Trump\u2019s cabinet, including Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., announced…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":997241,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5134],"tags":[5229,1582,276,728,8629,48859,50,80,3549,3550,7264,34159,7289,9656,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":["post-997240","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-diego","tag-america","tag-ca","tag-california","tag-local-news","tag-local-politics","tag-national-city","tag-news","tag-politics","tag-san-diego","tag-san-diego-county","tag-sandiego","tag-south-county","tag-top-stories-sdut","tag-uncategorized","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/117085799605302239","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/997240","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=997240"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/997240\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/997241"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=997240"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=997240"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=997240"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}