San Francisco should brace for a surge in homelessness.
That was the assessment of local housing advocates following a Department of Housing and Urban Development announcement that it would “take steps” to ensure no funding would be used to “support sanctuary policies of states or local governments that actively prevent federal authorities from deporting” undocumented residents.
On Friday, HUD Secretary Scott Turner issued a letter informing the department’s grantees and stakeholders of his plans to comply with an executive order titled “Ending Taxpayer Subsidization of Open Borders,” signed by President Trump Feb. 19.
San Francisco adopted its sanctuary city policy in 1989. It prohibits city staff and police from cooperating with Immigration and Customs Enforcement unless required to do so by federal or state law.
Laura Chiera, executive director and managing attorney at Legal Assistance to the Elderly, said the outlook is grim for any of the 15,000 San Francisco residents who stand to lose housing assistance.
“A whole portion of folks in San Francisco are housed because they’re able to pay 30% of their income as opposed to market rate,” Chiera said. “They’ll all be homeless, there’s no question.”
Turner’s directive builds on a recently announced memorandum of understanding between HUD and the Department of Homeland Security to monitor public housing programs and identify and possibly deport nonpermanent residents in households that receive federal support. That applies to asylum seekers, people with pending refugee status and Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program recipients, who are not eligible for housing assistance.
According to an agreement signed by Turner and Kristi Noem, secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, HUD staff members will join Incident Command Centers run by homeland security to share data and help with operations.
Federal regulations already prohibit non-U.S. citizens from qualifying for HUD housing assistance. Public housing agencies calculate rental subsidies based on the number of eligible residents in a household and do not provide funding to ineligible family members.
And immigrants usually take great pains to avoid accessing public benefits to limit risking future citizenship opportunities, said Chiera, whose organization provides free legal services to seniors and adults with disabilities in San Francisco.
Under immigration law, someone can be denied citizenship if they are deemed likely to become a “public charge” — meaning they rely primarily on government assistance.
“So, the folks who are in these situations were really desperate to get this housing. They were clearly homeless with their kids,” Chiera said. “I’m thinking of one person — they had small kids and kids with disabilities.”
But even people in untold numbers of households assiduously following the law will undoubtedly be fearful, said Hope Kamer from Compass Family Services, a nonprofit assisting unhoused and at-risk families in San Francisco.
Kamer said nearly half the families in the city’s family homeless response system are newcomers or include people with a mix of documented and undocumented statuses.
“So, we need to protect them via the homeless response system, which is often the only social service touch point that they are having in San Francisco,” Kamer said.
The San Francisco Housing Authority administers more than 6,000 Housing Choice Vouchers (aka Section 8 vouchers), more than 2,500 project-based vouchers tied to housing units and more than 900 pandemic-era emergency vouchers.
About 96% of the authority’s funding comes from HUD, the local agency confirmed in an email. “Thus, like all housing authorities, we are closely monitoring actions at the federal level,” wrote a representative for the housing authority, adding that it would not speculate on “issues that may or may not come to pass.”
“We at the Housing Authority are focused on serving our existing residents here in San Francisco,” the email continued. “We will support their need to maintain a stable home above all other priorities.”
HUD did not respond to several requests for comment.
A senior HUD official told the Washington Examiner last week that state and local governments could retain access to public housing funds if they were to comply with Turner’s new guidance. Details on how compliance would be enforced are unclear.
Jen Kwart, spokesperson for City Attorney David Chiu, declined to comment on the new HUD and homeland security partnership targeting nonpermanent residents.
However, in February, Chiu filed a multi-jurisdictional lawsuit to fight attacks on cities that limit cooperation with ICE, in response to Attorney General Pam Bondi’s order for federal departments to “pause the distribution of all funds until a review has been completed” of grants or other money flowing to sanctuary jurisdictions.
“This is the federal government illegally asserting a right it does not have, telling cities how to use their resources, and commandeering local law enforcement,” Chiu said at the time he announced the lawsuit. “This is the federal government coercing local officials to bend to their will or face defunding or prosecution. That is illegal and authoritarian.”
During the first Trump administration, Chiu successfully sued the government for trying to withhold federal funds over sanctuary policies. In 2018, an appeals court ruled that the city’s policies were legal and that withholding federal funds was unconstitutional.
Homelessness surging
Turner’s directives are only the latest actions expected to drastically undercut housing assistance as San Francisco struggles with its largest homeless population in 20 years.
HUD announced last month an early end to the pandemic-era Emergency Housing Vouchers program. HUD was authorized to fund the program until 2030, with the last vouchers expiring in 2035. Now the vouchers are set to end in 2026.
The department also indicated in an unsigned grant agreement with San Francisco that it will not enforce contract provisions that support “housing first” programs, reversing previous federal policy.
Housing first was implemented nationally in 2004 under the George W. Bush administration to address chronic homelessness. It was expanded under presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden. The policy emphasizes providing stable lodging as a foundation without preconditions for addressing other challenges linked to homelessness, such as substance use disorders. The approach ensures that residents don’t end up back on the street due to a relapse.
San Francisco’s Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing explicitly embraces housing first as a foundational strategy. In December, as one of its final actions under the Biden administration, HUD announced a $56 million grant for 35 supportive housing projects in San Francisco. The department wrote in an email that it has yet to receive funding it was promised by HUD, or any notification of cancellation or reduction.
Kwart said the city attorney’s office was reviewing the Community of Care grant conditions and “assessing options” to protect the funding.
Along with San Francisco’s projects, grants promised to nearly 7,000 projects nationwide under HUD’s Continuum of Care programs have also gone unpaid, according to a March 4 letter signed by 10 Democratic senators.
The projects enable homeless service providers to help veterans, families with children, youth, seniors and other vulnerable individuals access permanent and temporary housing, crisis counseling and other supportive services.
The letter admonished Turner for failing to deliver funding within the mandated timeline.
“HUD is required by law to obligate these funds no later than 45 days after the issuance of award letters, a deadline which passed on March 4, 2025,” states the letter. “To keep the lights on, providers are now being forced to draw on lines of credit at significant cost and risk to their organizations.”
