America’s housing crisis predates the Trump administration. Before the president was sworn in on January 20, the U.S. had a shortage of from 4-7 million homes, and last year, rental housing was unaffordable for half of all U.S. renters.
But while Trump didn’t cause the problem, the administration’s attacks on the Department of Housing and Urban Development are certainly not helping: From staff and program cuts to delays in paying out already-promised grants, Trump and the Department of Government Efficiency have created even more uncertainty for the roughly 10 million Americans who depend on HUD to help keep a roof over their heads.
Amid this chaos, one established regrantor is continuing with its unique approach to combating housing insecurity. Founded in Boston in 2004, GreenLight Fund, which works to fill gaps in existing nonprofit housing services in local communities, is now operating local chapters in 14 U.S. cities — including Boston, Detroit, Minneapolis/St. Paul and the San Francisco Bay Area. Along the way, GreenLight has picked up support from individual donors including MacKenzie Scott, corporations including the National Football League and Bank of America, and national foundations including Ford, Annie E. Casey and Bush. The fund, which reported net assets of $55.6 million in 2023, has invested $40 million at its sites and in turn has helped the localities it works in to raise an additional $320 million.
Funders looking to spend some of their readily available funds shoring up the country’s increasingly battered safety net may want to check out GreenLight’s model.
GreenLight first became involved in housing in 2008, said Vice President of Site Success Kate Schwass, initially launching in Boston to confirm the model could work in one place before starting to scale. GreenLight works by opening an office staffed by local people who then recruit representatives from the community including public servants, activists and educators. Those people then identify “missing pieces” in their existing nonprofit housing infrastructure — services that, if provided, could boost the effectiveness of the area’s already-existing organizations. “We work really hard to figure out what that missing piece is, then scan the country to find an amazing organization, bring them to our community, and give them the on-the-ground support they need to be successful,” she said. Housing is part of GreenLight Fund’s portfolio of work, which includes funding efforts to address financial inequity, unequal access to education, and employment issues.
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Sometimes, Schwass said, GreenLight finds a nonprofit that’s been effective at providing a service and helps the group open a new chapter where that service is needed, as it did in 2008 when the funder brought Youth Services (or YV) Life Set to Boston. Youth Villages, a nonprofit that helps foster youth who are aging out of the system, was originally founded in Memphis, Tennessee. Other times, GreenLight connects an organization in a different location with a nonprofit in one of its service areas so the local nonprofit can learn how to do the same work.
Throughout the process, local leaders determine the kinds of support they need to boost the effectiveness of their localities’ housing services. “GreenLight’s model is, we never want to push an organization at a community,” Schwass said. “We are looking for the community to elevate the needs they have, and then we go do this kind of matchmaking work, and then assess them for truly being a fit for that community.”
The nonprofits that GreenLight brings to new locations attack housing insecurity from several angles. The Fountain Fund, for example, serves formerly incarcerated people, providing low-interest loans and financial coaching as well as advocacy for public policy to reduce the hurdles formerly incarcerated people face when returning to society. Homestart’s Renew Collaborative prevents evictions by providing subsidies to low-income families, and Compass Working Capital’s financial coaching and savings program includes extra money from public funds that recipients can add to their savings accounts.
Schwass’ advice to other funders looking to make an impact on housing affordability is to focus on nonprofits working in areas like eviction prevention or asset building that allow low-income families to build a cushion for themselves. That way, they can avoid losing their home during emergencies, or build a nest egg to purchase their own home. “There’s a number of organizations that we support that exist in those two spaces in particular,” she said. “There’s a lot of amazing organizations out there that really think about how you stabilize a family or provide resources at a critical moment,” such as after a job loss or sudden medical emergency.
GreenLight is also working to shore up existing grantees in the face of the uncertainty caused by the Trump administration’s funding cuts. “We know our grantees, many of them, have some sort of federal funding or state funding,” she said. For its part, GreenLight is exploring options to make life easier for them, including adjusted payout schedules, streamlining reporting requirements and adjusting previously agreed-upon performance indicators.
“There are organizations that I think are stepping up in these moments,” Schwass said. “They’re working with families at a time when it’s harder than ever to navigate issues of poverty and the ripple effects, and I think organizations are showing up every day and doing this in really brilliant ways.”
In return, she said, funders need to ask themselves how they can best support nonprofits as they navigate this radically shifting ecosystem. “How are we self-reflective on our own practices to make sure that we are being responsive to what our communities need and also to the changing challenges of our nonprofit partners?”
As Inside Philanthropy’s Philip Rojc has recently written, philanthropic organizations and individual billionaires actually do have extensive resources to wield to help counter attacks on the social safety net, including housing here in the U.S. Using some of those funds to support housing is one critical way funders could soften the impact of the Trump administration’s damage to the economy, from tariff-incited inflation to rising unemployment. Surely, keeping people housed is worth the cost, even if doing so affects the size of funders’ endowments.
