For the past three years, Kendrick and Mary Jordan have watched their small family grow in an apartment of their own. That was once unimaginable: Before moving into the two-story apartment complex in St. Louis' Hamilton Heights neighborhood, the Jordans were homeless, bouncing between relatives and shelters to stay off the street.
Today, their lives are transformed in so many ways. The couple is raising two girls, ages 2 and 4. Their elder daughter's school is just a few blocks away.
"It's really nice to just wake up and make a little noise," Mary Jordan said. "The kids love playing around here. It's really beautiful."
But the stability that families like the Jordans have found through housing-first support programs is now in jeopardy. St. Louis advocates for homeless people and city officials are sounding alarms over a major policy shift announced last month by the Trump administration.
In a Nov. 14 statement released one day after the end of the government shutdown, the U.S Department of Housing and Urban Development denounced the housing-first model as an approach that "encourages dependence on the endless government handouts." Newly revealed was a plan to shift the government's focus away from permanent housing to a model that emphasizes transitional housing and supports self-sufficiency.
For decades, cities like St. Louis have relied on the federal government to fund local "continuum of care" networks, a multilayered system — amounting to nearly $4 billion annually — that has built permanent supportive housing communities and supplemented rent payments for people across the country.
As a result of the cuts, the National Alliance to End Homelessness estimates that at least 170,000 people will lose their supportive housing nationwide, including more than 3,000 people in Missouri.
The consequences of these changes, the group warned, "will be felt most acutely on the local level."
That impact includes St. Louis-based groups like Gateway Housing First. The nonprofit operates 10 housing communities for people leaving homelessness. The group's portfolio includes the apartment complex in Hamilton Heights where the Jordans have found a second chance to raise their children while recovering their lives.
In a recent interview, Mary Jordan said she disagrees with the assumption that she and her neighbors are freeloaders or somehow misusing public funds.
She acknowledged that both she and her husband are receiving treatment for mental health issues, something neither of them would have access to without the supportive services available to them through the permanent housing program. She pointed out that other people receiving rental aid have similar needs or live with significant disabilities.
"These four walls are all they have. Some people don't even walk outside their front door," she said. "This is all they know. So, to try to take that, and to say that they're 'using it'? It's just absurd."
Yet, in recent weeks, her husband, Kendrick Jordan, has noticed a change among his neighbors watching the news in the complex's common area.
"I can see them in front of the TV every morning," he said. "It's the cancellation part in general that's really the biggest conversation we have down there. … How are they going to end it? Why would they do that after so many years? What am I going to do? Are they going to give us another one? How am I going to pay my rent?"
The same questions are pressing local groups and government officials. Adam Pearson, director of St. Louis' Department of Human Services, told St. Louis on the Air that HUD's announcement last month was unwelcome.
"It does put a number of individuals in our community at risk of losing some of their long-term housing," Pearson said. "This long-term housing serving thousands of families in the St Louis area, a lot of that is going to be shifted. And so we are looking at potentially changing the housing arrangements of some of these individuals towards transitional housing."
The existing federal program commits almost 90% of its nearly $4 billion to permanent housing. That level will be cut to 30%. Missouri will see more than $32 million in cuts to its HUD-funded permanent housing programs. Some programs will lose funding as soon as January.
While the Trump administration says it's "stopping the Biden-era slush fund that fueled the homelessness crisis," organizations like Gateway Housing First say the changes threaten to worsen existing shortages and undo years of work. There is no easy replacement for tens of millions of dollars in lost federal funding.
"The reaction is a fear of devastation," said Cynthia Duffe, the nonprofit's executive director. "[We] have to figure out a way to pivot so quickly, to provide people the necessary financial support and support services without continuum of care funding, [and] to keep them housed with very little time to plan for it."
A change in federal funding isn't the only crisis facing St. Louis' most vulnerable residents. Teka Childress, Gateway Housing First's program director, noted that despite recent improvements to local shelters, hundreds of people will struggle this winter to find a place to stay warm from the cold each night. A tornado in May destroyed thousands of buildings, leaving even more people homeless.
"We have hundreds of people in our city right now who are unhoused," Childress said. "Just imagine next year, if we have 1,000 more people to add to that. We have 500-plus people every month calling for shelter. They're 100% utilized right now. There's no space."
Her prediction? "We are going to be in a crisis in our city if we unhouse these families."
To hear the full conversation reacting to the Trump administration's cuts to homelessness funding with St. Louis Department of Human Services Director Adam Pearson and Gateway Housing First's Cynthia Duffe and Teka Childress, listen to "St. Louis on the Air" on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or YouTube, or click the play button below.
"St. Louis on the Air" brings you the stories of St. Louis and the people who live, work and create in our region. The show is produced by Miya Norfleet, Emily Woodbury, Danny Wicentowski, Elaine Cha and Alex Heuer. The production intern is Darrious Varner. The audio engineer is Aaron Doerr.
Copyright 2025 St. Louis Public Radio