A Message Delivered at the OCTOBER 18, 2025 NO KINGS Rally in Portland.

In a decisive win for Maine and other states, a federal appeals court rejected government’s request to impose harmful restrictions on grant funding that allows tens of thousands of formerly homeless people across the country to remain in stable housing.

Attorney General Aaron M. Frey and a multistate coalitio sued the US Department of Housing and Uban Developmet (HUD) last November after HUD abruptly changed its Continum of Care program, the largest resource for federal homelessness assistance funding  HUD dramatically reduced the amount of grant funds that can be spent on permanent housing and put unlawful conditions on access to the funding.

US District Court Judge Mary McElroy sided with the states in December, saying HUD’s actions would cause irreparable harm to the plaintiffs, and issued a preliminary injunction barring HUD from implementing the unlawful restrictions.  on April 1, the appeals court rejected HUD’s request to temporarily allow the restrictions to go into effect.

“When so many can barefly afford basic necessities, the cruelty of threatening housing security for vulnerable Mainers to advance a political agenda is appalling,” said AG Frey.  “While this attempt by HUD was obviously unlawful, the stress and uncerainity the Administration created in a vulnerable populatio and the people workig hard to support them is wholly unnecessary and deeply destructive.”

The appeals court said plainiffs had provided ample evidence that if HUD moved ahead with its planned restrictions to the funding, the results would be “immediately destablizing and disastrous for their constituents.”