Social Safety Net

Trump Administration Efforts to Weaken Social Security

and Programs for the Homeless

👎 Social Security Administration makes it much more difficult for citizens to gain information; closing offices, firing staff (March 2025)

The Social Security Administration, described as “a well-managed, user-friendly public institution” has put up barriers to citizens seeking advice and information. Beginning in late March 2025, people will have to come in person to a Social Security office; they cannot simply call for information, even if they have a verified phone number. Local Social Security offices have been closed and staff laid off. “There is no legitimate purpose to these changes,” argued professor Robert Kuttner. “They are pure mischief, intended to weaken a widely appreciated and efficient public system that Elon Musk has disparaged as a Ponzi scheme.”

Further, DOGE operatives attempted to get personal information from Social Security records, under the guise of combatting fraud. US District Court Judge Ellen Lipton Hollander blocked these efforts, stating that this “is tantamount to hitting a fly with a sledgehammer. The DOGE team is essentially engaged in a fishing expedition at SSA, in search of a fraud epidemic, based on little more than suspicion.”

Hovering over this most important and vital government program is the perennial conservative/Wall Street notion that the Social Security program should be privatized.

Source: Robert Kuttner, “Trump’s Attack on Social Security Backfires,” The American Prospect, March 21, 2025, https://prospect.org/blogs-and-newsletters/tap/2025-03-21-trumps-attack-on-social-security-backfires/

👎 Mass firings in Federal Homelessness Program (March 2025)

The Office of Community Planning and Development in the Department of Housing and Urban Development is slated to lose 84 percent of its staff. "That proposed cut is massive. And the potential for adverse impact at the community level and at the national level is also massive," said Ann Oliva, a HUD veteran who is now CEO at the National Alliance to End Homelessness.

Current federal funds for rental assistance, mental health, substance abuse treatment and outreach amount to $3.6 billion. With the proposed staffing reductions, it becomes that more difficult to get funding to local community agencies and non-profits who provide housing and other services to the homeless.

Source: Oliva quoted in Jennifer Ludden, “Trump Administration Plans Mass Firing at Office That Funds Homelessness Programs,” NPR, February 22, 2025, https://www.npr.org/2025/02/22/g-s1-50199/doge-trump-hud-cuts-homeless-housing-programs