End Housing First policies for homelessness
What the document says“end Housing First”
Housing First provides permanent housing without preconditions such as treatment or sobriety. The chapter asks that it end so that the department prioritizes mental health and substance abuse issues before what it calls jumping to permanent interventions in homelessness.
What the document actually says“end Housing First”
End the policy called Housing First.
Housing First gives people a home right away. It does not ask them to get treatment first. The book says treatment should come first instead.
Ending Crime and Disorder on America's Streets
2025-07-24 · 90 FR 35817
Section 5(a) of EO 14321 directs the Secretaries of Health and Human Services and of Housing and Urban Development to end support for housing first policies that deprioritize accountability and fail to promote treatment, recovery and self-sufficiency, and section 5(b) directs HUD to increase requirements that participants with substance use disorder or serious mental illness use treatment as a condition of participation. That is what the passage asks. The order directs the agencies to act as appropriate and to the extent permitted by law rather than changing a rule itself, and it sets the directive among civil commitment, encampment removal and grant conditioning measures the proposal does not ask for.
An order tells the health and housing agencies to stop backing housing first policy. It also tells them to require treatment as a term of taking part. That is what the passage asks. But it gives a direction rather than changing a rule, and it adds steps the passage did not ask for.