With a federal lawsuit causing delays in funding, Lake County has moved to open up more than $500,000 to support the county’s Continuum of Care (CoC) from its federal funding contingency reserve.
In March, the County Board approved an emergency appropriation of $2 million from its general fund for the creation of a federal funding contingency reserve, meant to help “weather whatever happens,” as District 15 member Jennifer Clark said.
The fund is meant to help the county address temporary federal funding interruptions, which have raised concerns for organizations and municipalities across the county. Some threats of funding cuts are ultimately toothless, but even temporary delays can cause a scramble for organizations relying on federal funds.
This most recent move by Lake County is related to a federal lawsuit involving the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, according to Lake County Community Development Administrator Dominic Strezo. LCCD administers federal and local funding that supports agencies that assist residents experiencing homelessness, according to the Lake County website.
At the end of 2025, HUD put out a new notice of funding opportunity for CoC with revised guidelines. The issue, Strezo said, was that the 2024 funding opportunity was supposed to cover two fiscal years, and the change required recipients to reapply. The National Alliance to End Homelessness (NAEH) sued HUD in December on a “variety of grounds,” and the case is ongoing, he said.
According to a NAEH release in March, the U.S. District Court for the District of Rhode Island ruled the new funding restrictions violated the law and ordered that already-appropriated funding be accessible to the previous grantees.
The changed guidelines and subsequent lawsuit have caused some trouble for Lake County’s CoC, with federal money still tangled up. Some sub recipients — organizations like nonprofits that typically get funding directly from HUD — have already expired contracts.
While Strezo expects the HUD funds to eventually come in — possibly this summer, he said — to smooth things over in the meantime, Lake County has stepped in to act as a temporary middleman, with the $513,000 to cover any HUD contracts that require funds immediately. The county will later be reimbursed, Strezo said.
The “proactive step” by the county has been received positively, he said. The feedback from providers is that it’s “much needed.”
“It’s a good acknowledgment about the board, and consistent with their strategic plans and the actions they’ve taken around housing,” Strezo said. “I just want to emphasize how appreciative I am of the board stepping up.”
County Board member Paras Parekh, District 12, said it’s a position the county has never been in prior to the current administration. For grant-funded groups, the instability of federal funds makes planning harder, he said.
“We’re thinking this through, trying to manage in parallel a bit of the chaos, and I think this is a good way to do it,” Parekh said.
