Republicans Leaned on Debunked Fraud Claims to Justify Gutting Programs That Work
A recent House Oversight hearing on homeless services funding exposed the political games preventing communities from addressing one of America’s most pressing social problems.
Republicans during the Trump administration have claimed they want to review homeless services funding to root out supposed waste, fraud, and abuse. They often point to incidents such as the arrests of local homeless services leaders in California and the rising tide of unsheltered homelessness as proof that the system is being abused by bad actors. In turn, those claims have been used to justify throwing a wrench in the funding system, as evidenced by the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s repeated attempts to change its metrics for the Continuum of Care grant, the largest source of federal funding for services.
While Republicans have tried to mask those claims with an air of seriousness, the illusion quickly faded on Sept. 15 when Democrats and their expert witness forcibly pushed back.
“We are here once again … in a deeply unserious and political show targeting the most vulnerable people in the United States,” Rep. Melanie Stansbury (D-NM) said during her opening statement. “Let me make it clear: our people are not political props. Their dignity is not negotiable.”
The Claims Don’t Hold Up
Throughout the hearing, Republicans levied false claims about homelessness and the people who help those living in shelters and on the streets. For instance, Rep. Tim Burchett (R-TN), who chairs the House Oversight Subcommittee on Delivering on Government Efficiency, claimed that “left-wing political leaders are digging in on failed policies” such as safe injection sites and Housing First programs. He also blamed nonprofits receiving funding from the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority for the growing rates of homelessness in cities like Los Angeles.
Burchett’s claims don’t stand up to the slightest scrutiny. A systematic review of more than 20 peer-reviewed studies concluded that Housing First is the most cost-effective way to create long-term solutions for homelessness.
Housing First has been shown to keep people housed longer than substance use treatment and job training, two policies the Trump administration has pushed. Housing First also reduces reliance on first responders and jails to address homelessness, lowering costs for individual taxpayers.
Safe injection sites have also been proven to reduce drug overdoses and the spread of disease without increasing drug use, according to the Foundation for Economic Education. The assumption powering these sites is that communities should reduce the harm caused by drug use rather than punishing the person who uses them. Preventing overdoses and the spread of disease is a key component to helping someone stay connected with homeless services.
Where the Federal Government Actually Stands
Stansbury called out Republicans for ignoring the fact that the federal government has largely removed itself from the homeless services landscape. That shift has created “widespread anxiety” among service providers as federal funding for effective programs runs out.
“What is this hearing actually about? Can’t be about the stellar housing programs at HUD,” Stansbury said sarcastically.
She then listed several cuts the Trump administration has made to programs it claims to support, like the $1 billion it cut from substance use treatment grants. “Meanwhile, the grifter in chief is literally sitting over there across Pennsylvania Ave. tweeting out AI pictures of himself committing insider trading and making money off the backs of the American people.”
A Familiar Racial Narrative
Experts have said that repeated attempts to blame low-income households for alleged “fraud” is an example of how deeply racism is intertwined in America’s social services system. The Center for Law and Social Policy has found that “racist narratives have long portrayed Black communities as more likely to misuse public resources,” from the “welfare queen” narratives of the Ronald Reagan era to the homeless services fraud narratives of today.
The impacts of those narratives are clearly reflected in local homeless counts. Federal data shows that between 2024 and 2025, rates of homelessness among Black Americans increased by 2.6% to 233,000. People of Middle Eastern descent saw rates of homelessness double, with more than 3,700 people experiencing homelessness in 2025 compared to 1,513 in 2024, according to the data.
Correlation Isn’t Causation
The witnesses Republicans invited to the hearing also promoted narratives conflating the amount of federal funding a city receives with the number of unsheltered people living on the streets to argue that new “safeguards” were needed. For instance, Paul Webster, senior fellow at the Cicero Institute, claimed that Los Angeles was misusing its federal funds because homelessness had increased with the amount of funding it received.
Webster’s argument is a common one among Republicans, but it ignores several realities that are impacting low-income households. For starters, federal funding largely addresses homelessness after it occurs through services and supportive housing. However, about four people become homeless for every person who is housed through the current system. No system can survive that kind of input overload.
Those issues are becoming more challenging amid the rising cost of living spurred by stubborn inflation. The rising cost of living is forcing many low-income households to choose between paying their rent and other necessities like clothes and medicine. These are just a couple of reasons why the number of families with children who are becoming homeless has exploded across the U.S. in recent years.
Samantha Batko, senior fellow at the Urban Institute, reminded lawmakers that the proposed funding changes supported by the Trump administration will likely make these trends worse.
“Federal grantees should be held accountable for how taxpayer resources are spent, but new federal policy directions are not consistent with the strategies in communities making progress and threaten to undermine grantee performance by returning to previously failed and costly approaches and other strategies that show no evidence of reducing homelessness,” Batko said.
Following the Money
Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) claimed that the witnesses Republicans invited to the hearing were spouting “deeply misleading conceptions about homelessness.” She also highlighted the nakedly political initiative Republicans and their witnesses were undertaking by spreading those narratives.
Tlaib questioned Webster about Cicero Institute’s ties to private prison contractors, which suggests the group stands to benefit from the criminalization policies they are pushing across the U.S.
“Your founder stands to make a fortune by locking people up,” Tlaib said.
