In Spokane, Washington, Rebecca Ferris remembers the nights when she carried all she owned in a backpack and slept wherever she could: on shelter floors, borrowed couches, or the cold pavement downtown. Years of addiction and illness left her exhausted and uncertain whether she would survive. "I turned to Catholic Charities Eastern Washington when I was struggling to secure housing and in desperate need of support," she recalls.

Her turning point came when she received a key to a small apartment at Sisters Haven, part of the Housing First program. For the first time in years, she had a space that was hers alone. "Through the Onsite Supportive Housing Services and the staff at Sisters Haven, I was able to achieve sobriety, focus on my physical and mental health and reclaim my life," Ferris told the Spokesman-Review earlier this year. The simple stability of a locked door and steady roof allowed her to rebuild. "I'm proof that it's never too late to change. Now I have a future I can be proud of."

Yet the very policy that made Ferris's recovery possible, Housing First, is now under siege. Locally and nationally, a coordinated campaign led by a new Trump Executive Order and Project 2025 seeks to dismantle the model.

A Local Battle with National Roots

In Spokane, the debate over homelessness has become sharper than in most mid-sized American cities. Representative Michael Baumgartner has emerged as the leading voice pushing to abandon Housing First, framing it as a failed experiment that enables addiction and fuels crime. His rhetoric closely tracks President Trump's July 24 executive order, rejecting Housing First policies almost word for word. On August 17, Baumgartner went further: in the presence of Judicial House Committee Chair Jim Jordan at a Spokane fundraiser, he publicly honored local Conservative activist and land developer Sheldon Jackson, who has organized rallies against the Housing First model.

This alignment is not incidental. Spokane, with its visible encampments and strained shelters, offers a politically useful backdrop for a national campaign: a city small enough to be manageable, but large enough to symbolize the broader crisis. By amplifying Trump's directives, Baumgartner aligns the city's policies with Project 2025, a conservative playbook that treats homelessness primarily as a matter of law enforcement rather than public health.

Mayor Lisa Brown has pushed back, pointing to data showing the program reduces emergency room visits, jail bookings, and long-term costs. "We know it works, and it saves taxpayers money," she has argued. But Brown's evidence-based defense is being drowned out by a coalition eager to follow Washington, D.C.'s lead, even when it comes at the expense of Eastern Washington's most vulnerable residents.

The Blueprint: Project 2025

At the core of this shift is Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation's 900-page plan to overhaul the federal government. What makes the document distinct is its ambition: it doesn't simply critique Housing First; it reframes homelessness itself as a problem of criminality and moral failure, not poverty or public health. The housing chapter calls explicitly to "end Housing First policies," devolve or eliminate many of HUD's core functions, and replace evidence-based programs with treatment-first mandates, work requirements, and market-based experiments.

The document labels federal social programs "irrational, destructive, un-American," an ideological pivot that justifies punishment over support. In Spokane, that pivot is visible in the way encampments are described as threats to public order rather than symptoms of unmet housing and healthcare needs. Far from theoretical, Project 2025 has become a policy script that now shapes both Trump's July executive order and congressional legislation like HR1.

The Executive Order: Policy Becomes Action

Trump's July 24, 2025 executive order, "Ending Crime and Disorder on America's Streets," turned Project 2025's recommendations into federal policy. It halted support for Housing First programs, redirected grants to jurisdictions that criminalize encampments, and barred the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) from funding harm-reduction strategies such as safe consumption sites. The order explicitly directs agencies to prioritize jurisdictions that "enforce prohibitions on urban camping and loitering" and even expand the use of civil commitment for the mentally ill.

For Spokane, the consequences reach directly into its support system. Catholic Charities and other nonprofits rely on HUD's Continuum of Care grants and SAMHSA funds to operate housing and outreach programs. Under the order, those same grants are now conditioned on punitive measures: rewarding cities that pursue criminalization while placing evidence-based providers at risk of losing support. Where federal policy once reinforced Spokane's efforts to stabilize people like Rebecca Ferris with housing and wraparound services, it now pressures the city to replace that approach with policing and coercion.

The Legislative Pipeline: HR1 and the Coordinated Strategy

Congress is ensuring these changes outlast the White House, and Representative Michael Baumgartner has been one of HR1's loudest champions, calling it the "Big Beautiful Bill." The omnibus legislation embeds Project 2025's housing philosophy into law, turning short-term executive directives into permanent statutory changes.

Section 50001 rescinds all remaining Inflation Reduction Act funds for multifamily housing retrofits, cutting improvements that lower utility costs for low-income renters. Section 44103 creates Medicaid address verification requirements that function as a barrier for people without stable housing. The very problem that once kept Rebecca Ferris, and others like her, outside the healthcare system. Section 10002 removes SNAP work-requirement exemptions for homeless veterans and foster youth by 2030, while Section 10005 eliminates internet expense deductions from SNAP shelter calculations, raising costs for poor families already on the margin.

Baumgartner's support ties Spokane directly to this national legislative push. For Eastern Washington, it means veterans in Stevens and Ferry Counties could lose food assistance, low-income renters in Spokane Valley will face higher utility bills, and families across WA-5 will be squeezed out of programs that once offered them a lifeline. HR1 is not just a bill in Congress. It is Baumgartner's vision of policy, written into law at the expense of his own constituents.

Viewed in context, HR1 is not an isolated piece of legislation but the final stage of a deliberate strategy. Project 2025 provided the blueprint, Trump's executive order enforced it in the short term, and HR1 cements it into law. Each step ratchets up the pressure: stripping funding from Housing First providers, erecting new healthcare barriers, and cutting basic supports like food and utilities. The goal is not reform but redefinition: recasting homelessness as crime to be punished rather than a crisis to be solved.

Spokane as Ground Zero

Spokane's role in this fight is not accidental. By amplifying Trump's directives, Baumgartner positions the city as a proving ground for Project 2025: a stage where national actors can showcase their agenda in miniature. Washington, D.C., conservatives understand that if they can redefine homelessness here, in a mid-sized and politically divided community, they can replicate the model elsewhere.

That helps explain why Baumgartner has been elevated as a messenger and why figures like Jim Jordan appear at Spokane fundraisers: the city offers imagery of visible encampments, economic anxiety, and a fractured political climate that make it an ideal backdrop. The local debate is less about Spokane's unique needs than about providing a laboratory where Project 2025's ideas can be tested and sold to the rest of the country. For residents, this means their community has become a proxy battlefield where housing policy is shaped not by Spokane's realities (rising rents, lack of treatment beds, a shortage of affordable units) but by a national agenda looking for symbolic victories.

Crime, Fear, and the Conservative Dog Whistle

Republicans sell their strategy as a public-safety campaign, deliberately conflating poverty, mental illness, and crime. It is a dog whistle calibrated to provoke fear, not solutions. By framing homelessness as criminality, they justify coercive measures while diverting attention from evidence that Housing First reduces costs and saves lives.

Decades of data confirm that stable housing cuts jail bookings, emergency room visits, and overall public spending. Punitive crackdowns do the opposite: displacing vulnerable people, multiplying instability, and driving costs higher. As one Spokane provider explained, "You can't treat addiction or mental illness if someone doesn't know where they'll sleep tonight."

The conflict could not be clearer: punishment and displacement versus evidence-based care that stabilizes lives.

The Human Cost

Rebecca Ferris's story makes this conflict real. Without Housing First, she would not have had the stability needed to pursue sobriety, health, and purpose. "Today, I move forward with a renewed sense of purpose and hope for the future," she told the Spokesman-Review. "For those struggling, remember to breathe, live your life, love another and pass on hope."

Her words expose the stakes: Project 2025, Trump's executive order, and congressional codification do not see neighbors in need; they see risks to be policed. For Eastern Washington, that shift means veterans, families, and the most vulnerable face new barriers instead of support.

Rebecca's future was made possible because someone gave her a key, not a citation. The next Rebecca may never get that chance.