The Trump administration took back plans to scrap millions in homelessness prevention support this week, but the move could leave service providers scrambling to fund housing for 1,200 at-risk Mainers in the new year.

In a grant notice issued last month, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development said it was making “monumental” changes to its Continuum of Care homelessness prevention program, shifting billions from permanent housing support to transitional housing and mental health services.

State leaders decried the move, saying 1,200 people in Maine were at risk of losing their stable housing as soon as January if the changes moved forward. Maine Attorney General Aaron Frey then joined a lawsuit against HUD, arguing the changes violated administrative law and were made too hastily.

Then, less than an hour before a federal court hearing on that lawsuit, HUD reversed course. The agency pulled the grant ask from its website, saying it was planning to make “appropriate revisions.”

When U.S. District Court Judge Mary S. McElroy found out, she was not happy.

“She was very, very irate with what she called a ‘haphazard approach to administrative law,'” said Katie Spencer White, the CEO of the Mid-Maine Homeless Shelter in Waterville, who watched the hearing remotely. “She admonished the government’s lawyer for not following the Administrative Procedures Act, and she said, ‘Even in cases where you disagree with the Congress’s allocation, you can’t just not pay out what you said you’re going to pay out. There is a process that needs to be followed.’ And this is a key part: She said, ‘It’s not by tweet.'”

McElroy, a judge in the Rhode Island District Court, was appointed by President Donald Trump in 2019.

While White said HUD’s retraction of its changes gives some breathing room to service providers to figure out what to do next, she said significant uncertainty remains in the short-term.

Providers across Maine must now wait for a court hearing Dec. 19 to know if they will receive emergency relief to fund homelessness prevention programs in the new year.

Under the new proposal, a maximum of 30% of the $3.9 billion would have funded Permanent Supportive Housing, a program that provides stable housing and supportive services to people with disabilities. Previously, closer to 90% of the funding had supported long-term housing.

“While we’re trying to figure this out, there’s irreparable harm being caused to very vulnerable people,” said White, who also serves on the Maine Continuum of Care funding committee. “That’s why next Friday is so critical. We’re going to find out at that point whether or not we’re going to get the immediate relief. We’ll find out if we’re going to continue under the currently approved contract.”

Seventy people in Kennebec and Somerset counties are among those at risk of losing their housing through the Permanent Supportive Housing Program, administered locally by Kennebec Behavioral Health.

That could exacerbate issues with central Maine’s already strained homelessness services.

In Waterville, at White’s shelter, space remains extremely limited as the city continues to enforce a camping ban.

White said 80 people have stayed at the Mid-Maine Homeless Shelter for the past several nights; the shelter was built to house 48 people. Average stay length at the shelter has skyrocketed from 37 days in 2019 to 139 days now, she said — a 276% increase.

While the state as a whole saw homelessness numbers decline this year, Kennebec and Somserset counties saw a significant increase, up 32% from 2024 — the biggest jump in the state.

In Augusta, proposals to build the city’s only full-service round-the-clock homeless shelter have repeatedly failed due to pushback from officials and residents alike — and law enforcement struggles to manage competing concerns from business owners and homeless people themselves.

A proposal to build a shelter on East Chestnut Street was effectively shot down Tuesday by the Augusta Planning Board, despite recommendations from the Augusta Task Force on Homelessness to build temporary shelter in the city.

In the longer term, the changes proposed by HUD in its grant funding proposal will likely move forward, White said, regardless of next Friday’s decision on emergency funding.

It could take a decade for homelessness services to recover from such a shift, Dean Klein, the executive director of Maine Continuum of Care, said last month.

“It kicked the can down the road in terms of funding for Permanent Supportive Housing,” White said. “That’s on the chopping block, and there’s nothing anybody can really do to prevent the administration from pivoting in this way. It’s going to cause chaos. Hopefully we’re not going to have chaos in January.”