Elected officials and advocates are pictured on Dec. 22, 2025 holding signs as they bring awareness to a revised U.S. Housing and Urban Development funding notice for continuum of care dollars toward housing and homelessness programs. (Rachel Ravina – MediaNews Group)
HealthSpark Foundation CEO and President Emma Hertz says 'it's devastating'
Momentum to address Montgomery County’s joint housing and homelessness crises could be stymied with new federal grant distribution guidelines, officials are warning.
Advocates in Bucks and Montgomery counties gathered Monday morning at the Warminster-based Access Services to raise the alarm about revisions to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s notice of funding opportunity to the Continuum of Care Program Competition.
Montgomery County could stand to lose nearly $3.47 million in grant dollars, a shortfall with the potential to impact hundreds of vulnerable residents.
“It’s devastating,” said HealthSpark Foundation CEO and President Emma Hertz. “This is the single largest program to support housing and homeless services across the country, and to have it shifted in this way, especially the cap on permanent supportive housing, would cut out funding that is completely irreplaceable.”
Hertz stressed there’s “no amount of county intervention, philanthropic intervention, that could be used to fill the gap.”
It’s been frustrating for Bucks-Mont Collaborative Executive Director Kristyn DiDominick, who categorized the procedural events as “delayed and deeply disruptive” in recent weeks.
“We want to be partners with HUD in ending homelessness,” DiDominick said. “[A] partnership that requires trust, transparency and alignment with evidence, not policy whiplash, delays and incentives that push communities away from proven solutions.”
Federal representatives first alerted agencies in late November to the changes related to the “largest federal program to provide funding and resources to communities to address homelessness” in a development that could put upwards of 172 households at risk locally starting early next year.
“When HUD funding is reduced, removed or delayed, the impact is immediate and devastating,” said Laurel House Executive Director Stacy Dougherty. “No one should have to choose between homelessness and abuse. No one should have to stay in danger because affordable housing is unavailable.”
The seven-figure sum supports four different housing and homelessness-focused initiatives, according to advocates, which include “three projects assisting 59 households, or 92 people, currently living in permanent housing, and “one homeless management information system project to support critical infrastructure.”
Family Services of Montgomery County, 1260 Housing Development Corporation and Valley Youth House were identified as three organizations with existing contracts that expire in early 2026. Current continuum of care funding awards are slated to expire between January and June 2026, according to the National Alliance to End Homelessness.
“The COC program is the most critical federal funding stream to address homelessness, and is the key portion in the entire continuum of services to really help support that end of ending homelessness, getting people back into housing and back into the community,” said Kayleigh Silver, administrator of the Montgomery County Office of Housing and Community Development.
Silver said around 10,000 people were assisted with continuum of care-funded programming over the past decade, and between 85 percent and 95 percent of individuals were estimated to maintain housing.
“I am extremely concerned for families and households,” Silver said, adding, “I am extremely concerned to see all that hard work be potentially dismantled, and more people needing to go back into the homeless crisis response system and needing support.”
“There is not enough emergency housing or short-term supportive housing to meet the needs of people experiencing homelessness as it is today,” Silver said. “So it would just dramatically increase the number of people experiencing homelessness in need of services and emergency support.”
HealthSpark Foundation CEO and President Emma Hertz, left, makes remarks at a Dec. 22, 2025 press conference as Bucks County Commissioners’ Vice Chairwoman Diane Marseglia looks on. (Rachel Ravina – MediaNews Group)
Rates of homelessness have been on the rise in recent years in the absence of a major operational shelter in Montgomery County. The Coordinated Homeless Outreach Center in Norristown closed in June 2022 and a facility has yet to reopen.
There were 357 individuals reported experiencing homelessness on a cold night in 2023, 435 people in 2024 and 534 people found this year during the 2025 Point-in-Time Count, according to figures from the Norristown Hospitality Center, as it relates to the federally-mandated initiative designed to catch a glimpse into the local homelessness situation on a given night.
Montgomery County signaled intentions to address the issue by earmarking $10 million in the 2025-29 capital improvement program fund for a homeless shelter to invest in infrastructure solutions, with targeted projects in Lansdale, Norristown and Pottstown.
A 20-bed supportive short-term housing facility is slated to open in early 2026 in Lansdale. County officials also executed a lease for up to 120 beds at a Pottstown hotel and received zoning relief for a 50-bed facility in Norristown.
Officials have long attributed the increased cost of living, a lack of affordable housing stock, and after-effects from the COVID-19 pandemic and remnants of Hurricane Ida to the uptick in homelessness. Montgomery County also had the third-highest eviction rate in Pennsylvania, according to a 2024 report from the Housing Alliance of Pennsylvania. Pennsylvania recorded 115,619 eviction filings in 2024. Of those, Allegheny County had 14,393 evictions, Philadelphia had 13,258 evictions and Montgomery County had 8,534 evictions.
“Montgomery County already has a really high eviction rate. So … people are losing their housing [at an] alarming rate,” said Access Services Director of Program Development Mark Boorse. “We’re already … struggling, and so if this funding doesn’t come through … people who are in housing right now are going to lose the subsidies that keep them there, and so … we’re going to end up magnifying the rate of homelessness by a whole lot.”
Pennsylvania received $177 million last year in continuum of care funding, which covers resources and assistance related to permanent housing, rental assistance and other supportive services, according to a Nov. 25 statement from Gov. Josh Shapiro’s office. The Keystone State could lose more than $102.1 million if federal guidelines proceed on the current trajectory.
Twenty states and the District of Columbia challenged the department’s actions in court. The first took place on Dec. 8, according to advocates, who noted the federal agency “released a new” notice of funding opportunity on Dec. 19 prioritizing “less effective strategies” to address homelessness locally, “and a confusing timeline given court orders.”
“I think that this couldn’t come at a worse time. HUD is intentionally pulling back guidance and changing guidance, right as providers are going out on holiday break, right as the grant programs are attempting to get renewed,” Hertz said, observing how “the immensity of these changes, and the way in which they have gone about making them is unprecedented.”
Hertz acknowledged “it’s an incredibly complicated process” as she emphasized the need for nonprofit and government partners to stay informed and shed light on the impacts. Hertz said federal and plaintiff representatives still need to “come to an understanding of the current language,” and submit it to the U.S. District Judge Mary S. McElroy.
In the meantime, officials in a statement urged congressional representatives to remove the 30 percent cap, which advocates emphasized “takes away local control from housing providers who understand what’s needed,” and to vote for an amendment to the fiscal year 2026 transportation housing and urban development appropriations bill that would extend subsidies.
The alternative could result in a staggering increase to the county’s homelessness situation in a system that’s already taxed, Boorse anticipated.
“The debate around visible homelessness has already escalated to sort of a fever pitch, and so we’re about ready to add to that in astronomical numbers, and the sad part is, it will reinforce the fact that this is economic,” Boorse said. “This is not about personal choice, or behavior, or any of those things. This is straight up, people can’t afford to be inside, and when that happens, they are stuck outside.”
