More than 20 nonprofit organizations that receive federal grants to serve victims of domestic violence and sexual assault, and those experiencing homelessness, filed a lawsuit Monday against the Trump administration over new funding requirements.
The organizations — which are spread across more than a dozen states and include Rhode Island Coalition Against Domestic Violence, Colorado Coalition Against Sexual Assault, and Violence Free Minnesota — allege the changes at the Departments of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and Health and Human Services (HHS) “have thrown a wrench” in their “life-saving work.” Some of the plaintiffs, according to the suit, stand to lose hundreds of thousands of dollars in federal funds.
The complaint, filed in U.S. District Court for the District of Rhode Island, states that the new restrictions do not enable the plaintiffs to better serve vulnerable members of society and instead “seek to advance the Administration’s wholly unrelated ideological goals—including to end ‘diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility,’ deny transgender people’s identities, and cut off access to abortion resources and referrals.”
In March, for example, HUD Secretary Scott Turner announced in a post on social media that the department would impose new conditions on funds distributed through its Continuum of Care program, which is designed to end homelessness. The conditions cite several executive orders President Donald Trump issued during the first weeks of his presidency, including that the government will only legally recognize two, unchangeable sexes; deem diversity, equity and inclusion programs within the federal government “illegal”; and end “forced use of Federal taxpayer dollars to fund or promote elective abortion.”
HHS and three of its divisions — the Administration for Children and Families, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Health Resources and Services Administration — were also named as defendants and have enacted similar conditions for grant recipients, affecting the CDC’s Rape Prevention and Education program, funding for families who have experienced domestic violence and grants intended to reduce infant and maternal mortality, among other programs.
In line with those executive orders, the conditions at HUD and HHS prohibit grant recipients from using funds to promote “gender ideology,” which the administration defines as the concept that someone’s gender identity can be different than their birth sex. They also require recipients to certify that they do “not operate any programs that violate any applicable Federal antidiscrimination laws” and prohibit recipients from using funds to “fund or promote elective abortions.” The complaint argues that the requirements have been written in a way “expressly designed to expose grantees to civil and criminal liability” under the False Claims Act, which prohibits false claims to the federal government.
The complaint says these new conditions put plaintiffs “between a rock and a hard place.”
“They can accept the conditions—and fundamentally change their programming, abandon outreach methods and programs designed to best serve their communities, and risk exposing themselves to ruinous liability. Or they can decline the funding and halt their funded programs—displacing domestic and sexual violence survivors from safe housing, ending programs designed to reduce and prevent domestic and sexual violence, and putting previously homeless families and children back on the streets,” the complaint states.
HHS, the Administration for Children and Families, the CDC, the Health Resources and Services Administration and HUD did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the complaint.
Skye Perryman, the president and CEO of Democracy Forward, one of the organizations representing the plaintiffs, said the new policy is an example of the administration continuing to “target people in vulnerable communities.”
“Organizations serving survivors of domestic violence and sexual assault, LGBTQ+ youth, and people experiencing homelessness should not be forced to abandon their work, erase the identities of those they serve, or compromise their values just to keep their doors open,” Perryman said in a statement. “This unlawful and harmful policy puts extreme schemes ahead of people’s dignity and safety by restricting essential federal support.”
The suit, which asks the court to permanently block the funding conditions, argues that imposing the restrictions exceeds the government’s authority by circumventing Congress, which generally approves any changes to federal funding.
In addition, the suit argues that in some cases the conditions conflict with other federal policies. For example, recipients of Continuum of Care funds are required to comply with nondiscrimination regulations, the suit states, including HUD’s equal access rule, which requires services, including sleep quarters and bathroom facilities, to be “provided to an individual in accordance with the individual’s gender identity,” and that individuals are “not subjected to intrusive questioning” or asked to provide evidence of their gender identity.