For more than a century, America’s response to homelessness was rooted in faith. Churches, rescue missions, Catholic Charities, and the Salvation Army fed the hungry, sheltered the vulnerable, and most importantly, walked alongside them toward restoration. They innately understood a fundamental truth: Homelessness is a human transformation challenge requiring recovery, accountability, and the restoration of purpose.
Over the past decade, however, policymakers were increasingly steered toward a different conclusion. A one-size-fits-all approach was supposed to end homelessness and simplify it — housing as the solution, housing placement as the sole metric, and a uniform approach applied everywhere. For policymakers drawn to ease, the appeal was obvious. But in embracing simplicity, the system ignored human complexity.
Faith-based organizations began to be pushed to the margins even though they — not Washington bureaucracy — had historically led the nation’s homelessness response.
The federal government’s takeover began with the Stewart B. McKinney Homeless Assistance Act of 1987. By creating dedicated funding streams and installing HUD as the lead agency, Washington invoked a familiar playbook: control the funding, and you control the system. By the mid-1990s, the federal government was the dominant funder, and thus policymaker, with billions flowing through Continuum of Care and Emergency Solutions Grants.
Roughly a third of faith-based providers gradually conformed to federal requirements to access these vast funding streams. Meanwhile, local governments — particularly counties — became increasingly reliant on federal dollars to address homelessness in their regions, ultimately ceding local control and accountability in the process.
Soon, relational care gave way to bureaucratic management, and the goal of restoration was replaced by the metric of “housed.”
National homelessness data, which did not exist until the mid-1990s, began to produce telling outcomes: trillions of dollars spent, and homelessness still on the rise.
The shift accelerated in 2013, as Housing First became the nation’s one-size-fits-all approach to homelessness. It prioritized permanent housing vouchers with no expectation of sobriety, treatment, work, or personal accountability. Funding for mental health care and addiction treatment — conditions afflict nearly 80 percent of the street homeless population — was redirected toward additional housing vouchers.
Housing became the destination rather than a step toward transformation.
Unsurprisingly, homelessness did not end by 2024 as promised. It soared to the highest level ever recorded, up nearly 35 percent.
But Housing First did more than reshape policy; it reshaped who was welcome to participate.
Because faith-based organizations emphasize rehabilitation, accountability, and behavioral change, many found themselves out of alignment with government’s definition of success: placement into permanent housing. Their approach to homelessness was not merely sidelined; it was structurally defunded and discouraged.
Under the Obama and Biden administrations, they were further marginalized as they were pressed to adopt policies and programmatic standards that diluted or contradicted their traditional beliefs.
But faith-based organizations succeed precisely because they reject that drift. They emphasize relationships over transactions, accountability over permissiveness, purpose over dependency, and results over rhetoric.
Research underscores this impact. A Baylor University study estimated that faith-based residential recovery programs deliver $13.33 in taxpayer savings for every public dollar invested when participants achieve stable housing and employment.
That is why the Trump administration’s call to reintegrate faith-based providers into the nation’s homeless system is so significant. Redirecting policy toward transitional housing, treatment, wraparound services, and accountability reflects an understanding that success must be measured by lives restored, not simply keys to an apartment.
Faith-based organizations can and must lead where government cannot — bringing hope, accountability, and purpose to programs designed to address the complexity of human transformation.
Government can fund and coordinate, but it cannot manufacture hope or replicate the relational community that drives lasting change. Faith-based organizations do not need Washington to scale them; they need Washington to stop sidelining them.
Restoring balance to our nation’s homeless system is this administration’s goal. After more than a decade of over-prioritizing permanent housing vouchers, the need to reintegrate restoration and pathways to independence is clear.
The Trump administration has begun laying the groundwork to move beyond a narrow focus on individual housing that too often isolates individuals from community and the services essential to recovery, and to reengage the faith-based community with the experience and relational expertise to lead lasting transformation.
The goal is not merely fewer people on the streets, but restored lives, renewed hope, and communities that thrive. When recovery becomes the priority, human potential is unlocked — and when people are restored, our cities are reclaimed.
Michele Steeb is the founder of Free Up Foundation and author of “Answers Behind the RED DOOR: Battling the Homeless Epidemic,” based on her 13 years as CEO of Northern California’s largest program for homeless women and children. She is a Visiting Fellow with Discovery Institute’s Fix Homelessness Initiative. Follow them on Twitter: @SteebMichele and @ DiscoveryCWP.
