The city is coming closer to a confrontation with federal authorities over Trump administration policies such as requiring cooperation with immigration enforcement and outlawing diversity, equity and inclusion programs. Officials expect that Cambridge will need to sign an agreement to accept such measures to renew $6.3 million in annual federal grants that help fund supportive housing for formerly homeless people.
“We’re engaged in legal review of the conditions that are being placed on the $6.3 million of annual grants which support permanent supportive housing for more than 200 individuals in Cambridge, as well as staffing to provide services that support those individuals to ensure they can stay housed,” city manager Yi-An Huang told city councillors May 5 in his biweekly report on the impacts of new federal policies.
Not surprisingly, Huang said the city has “significant concerns” about the conditions attached to the grant renewals “These conditions include overly broad and vague stipulations regarding immigration enforcement, health care and DEI as well as punitive clauses that would require paying triple the original grant amount in the case of violations,” he said.
Some grants are up for renewal in the next two months. Two, worth $1.1 million, are for permanent supportive housing programs operated by Heading Home, the Cambridge shelter provider, and need to be renewed June 1. Two other grants, totaling $1.8 million, are for programs offered by Heading Home and by HomeStart, a Boston nonprofit that helps people find housing and prevent homelessness; they must be renewed July 1, city spokesperson Jeremy Warnick said.
The projects are part of the city’s Continuum of Care program. Continuum of Care has been a federally supported nationwide initiative that supports housing and services across the country.
The language that the city won’t accept hasn’t yet been presented to Cambridge, but officials expect it not only because of executive orders from the president but because some communities are fighting back. Huang said Boston and other cities and counties have sued the federal government over conditions attached to grants for Continuum of Care projects. He said the city is following this and other lawsuits challenging Trump administration actions.
Cambridge is considering writing one- or two-month contracts with the nonprofit organizations that provide the services to keep the programs going while legal fights play out in the courts, Huang said. That “would buy us more time to allow a thorough legal review of and potential legal challenges of the grant terms, and to engage in contingency planning,” he said. “At this point, the [city] budget impact is hard to estimate, given the possibility that federal funding freeze would be halted by the courts, but the overall risk represents $6 million of critical funding for people in our community who have been housed but risk becoming homeless.”
The city might try writing the same interim contracts for $3.5 million in federal grants that renew July 1, Huang said. Those grants are for the community block grant program supporting affordable housing and businesses and for the Emergency Solutions Grant program that pays for shelter and housing programs, among others, Warnick said.
“Is it the case that we will need to find $10 million to cover these specific federal grants in the upcoming fiscal year? The answer is, unfortunately, we don’t know. We believe these federal actions, including the new grant requirements, are exceeding the executive branch’s authority and should be stopped by the courts. But how this will play out over the coming months is not clear,” Huang said.
Asked for details on the interim contract strategy, Warnick said the city is “exploring options” to continue services during uncertainty about the legality of the Trump administration orders. “The specifics of those options, including the possibility of interim contracts, are still being evaluated, if they are to be required at all. The next few weeks will determine those next steps,” he said.
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The short term contracts seem to be the logical approach rather than to get locked into unwanted entanglements with the federal crimes against empathy, humanity and social improvement that the Trump administration is attempting to force on everyone.
The Trump effort is a Blitzkrieg politically using tactics and they hope to force cities, states, companies and non-profits to bend to their will before it is blocked by the courts. Speed is their weapon of choice, along with intimidation and threats of violence and false arrests of those who oppose them. Slowing them is the best way to defeat them.
If the City would cut out all the really non-essential expenditures, it would have the money to fund these essential programs.
An ombudsman pays for him/ her self ten times over. Similar to an IRS agent, in that case 25-50 times over.
What is non-essential to you may be essential for someone else.
We need to impeach!