NORTH ADAMS — Local shelter providers are worried changes within the Department of Housing and Urban Development could gut their response to housing insecurity and homelessness in the Berkshires.

President Donald Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency, an entity known by DOGE and overseen by Elon Musk, is planning sweeping staff cuts at HUD and promising to root out so-called spending inefficiencies within the agency. HUD’s Office of Community Planning and Development faces a staff reduction of 84 percent, the largest in the agency.

That office recently awarded Louison House, a shelter and transitional housing nonprofit, almost $600,000 to address homelessness in the Berkshires.

But now, staff at Louison House are worried the check will never come. And yet, the rent, utilities and programming still need to be funded. 

HUD’s Office of Community Planning and Development oversee hundreds of millions of dollars disbursed to communities across the country, including here in the Berkshires. Most of those grants are reimbursed monthly, and federal workers must regularly review each grantees’ budget and conduct in-person visits to ensure they are spending the funds properly.

With a skeleton crew left behind, shelter providers in the Berkshires and across the country are worried the reimbursement of their awarded funding will be delayed or held up. There’s also concern that DOGE could terminate their funding entirely. HUD awarded $3.6 billion in annual funding to shelter providers on Jan. 17, three days before Trump took office. But recipients in Western Massachusetts have yet to see the official grant agreement, the formal contract between HUD and grant recipients like Louison House that outlines the terms and conditions for receiving and using federal funds from HUD programs.

“Louison House may be paying bills that we’ll never be reimbursed for,” said Kathie Keeser, executive director of the nonprofit.

‘SERVICES GOING UNPAID’

As housing insecurity deepens across the Berkshires, more people are experiencing homelessness and seeking shelter and support services. Louison House, which serves Northern Berkshire County and Pittsfield, is the only HUD-funded nonprofit offering these services. ServiceNet, the other shelter provider in the Berkshires, receives state and private funding.

Last year, 397 people in the Berkshires were experiencing homelessness, according to the annual Point in Time Count. Louison House shelters between 50 and 57 of those people at any given time.

HUD awarded $3.6 billion in grants on Jan. 17 nationwide to support agencies like Louison House that provide housing and services to homeless people.

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The funding is first directed to Continuums of Care, regional organizations that coordinate the funding for people experiencing homelessness, which then distribute it among local agencies.

The Three County Continuum of Care, which serves Berkshire, Franklin and Hampden counties, was awarded about $3.7 million. Louison House is supposed to receive almost $600,000 of that award, Keeser said.

But a month after the funding cycle began on Feb. 1, Shaundell Diaz, the program director at the Three County CoC, has yet to hear from HUD about if and when she will receive grant agreements for the awarded funding.

Historically, it can take HUD a couple of months to send out grant agreements, Diaz said. But with DOGE planning to cut staff and $260 million in alleged wasteful contracts, Diaz is worried those grant agreements will never arrive.

Despite the uncertainty, Diaz and Keeser have little choice but to start spending their awarded funding. Neither the Three County CoC nor Louison House have funding left over from last year, and both rely heavily on the HUD grants to run their programming.

But there’s a chance anything they spend could be money they will later have to pay from their own pockets.

“We can’t draw down funds, which means that right now our services are going unpaid until we receive those grants,” Diaz said. “With these layoffs and cuts we’re seeing, we’re not sure of when we are actually going to see agreements, if at all.”

AN UNSTEADY ENVIRONMENT 

Federal funding accounts for about one-third of Louison House’s budget, Keeser said. The remaining two-thirds are composed of state funding, foundation grants and individual donations.

The federal funding contributes to covering staffing, maintenance, insurance, utility and rental costs for three programs at Louison House — transitional housing for people who need long-term shelter, permanent supportive housing and the Bracewell Youth Project.

During the last funding cycle, HUD awarded Louison House around $578,460, Keeser said; $134,531 of that award went toward operating costs for the nonprofit’s transitional housing program, which provides people with long-term around-the-clock shelter.

The program has received federal funding consistently since the early 1990s, making it the nonprofit’s oldest running program.

“This would be interrupting something that has close to 30 years of being paid as a HUD program,” Keeser said.

Another $335,445 of the award funded Louison House’s permanent supportive housing programs in Pittsfield and Northern Berkshire County, Keeser said. About $250,000 of that goes to covering rents and utility costs for 15 apartments housing 30 people.

Louison House has run the permanent supportive housing program since 2009. It houses people who are “chronically homeless,” meaning they have experienced homelessness over a prolonged period of time and face barriers that make it difficult for them to access housing, Keeser said. The program provides long-term housing accompanied with services like mental health support, job search assistance and financial education.

Leases for those 15 apartments are up, but Keeser is dragging her feet on renewing them. Uncertain about her budget, Keeser has started negotiating with landlords to bring lease terms down from a year to six months so that if the nonprofit doesn’t receive federal funding, it is only liable for six months worth of rent.

“We have some savings, so we are taking chances and we are signing leases,” Keeser said.

The final $108,685 of last year’s award funded the Bracewell Youth Project. Construction on the project is ongoing, but once it is completed in late spring the new building will house six or seven young adults aged 18 to 24 who are experiencing homelessness, Keeser said.

Together, the three projects provide business for six landlords in the county and house about 57 people, including families with young children.

If HUD moves forward with the planned layoffs and spending cuts it would gut these programs, said Keeser. The federal funding Louison House receives annually already can’t keep up with the demand or the rising rents and utility costs.

“The federal cuts are destabilizing what is an already unstable environment for folks,” Diaz said.

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If the grant agreements never arrive or if the reduced staff holds up reimbursements, Keeser said she could tap the nonprofit’s savings and use individual donations in the short term. But without federal assistance, she could only keep programs running to scale for a few months.

“We’d have to stretch staffing,” Keeser said. “We’d have to slowly eliminate apartments. We’d do the best we could to keep people in the program as long as we can.”

‘HOUSING NEEDS CERTAINTY’

Uncertainty about the future of HUD staffing and funding is also felt among members of Congress.

U.S. Rep. Richard Neal said changes at HUD are part of the strategy Trump has assumed since returning to office — “throw everything at the wall and see what sticks.”

“Housing needs certainty and people need to be able to depend upon quality and quantity of housing units,” Neal said.

Neal said he has and will continue to vote against federal staffing and funding cuts, but to effectively halt those proposals a handful of Republicans in Congress must break with the president. That likely won’t happen for at least a few months, Neal said.

On Feb. 20, 25 Senate Democrats, led by Senators Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass, and Chuck Schumer, D-NY, sent a letter to HUD Secretary Scott Turner requesting transparency on DOGE’s involvement at HUD and its potential impact on housing programs.

“Axing these offices will handicap the Department’s ability to serve the American public and exacerbate the housing crisis we currently find ourselves in,” the letter reads.

It goes on to say that it is critical that the secretary provides more information about the wasteful spending DOGE has allegedly identified within the agency.

“This is particularly important because, even before implementing any cuts, HUD’s DOGE Task Force is already interfering with the department’s future planning and funding, which is critical to boosting our nation’s housing supply,” the letter reads.