A new Fresno County homelessness agency will debut as hundreds of emergency shelter beds are closing and funding sources change their mission.

Fresno County supervisors Thursday approved the creation of the Office of Housing Homelessness, a roughly six-person agency tasked with coordinating the dozens of homeless agencies responsible for housing or caring for the roughly 4,500 homeless people in the region.

But major state and federal changes have sharply reduced available resources, with funding cuts resulting in a possible 331 shelter beds closing by June 2026.

President Donald Trump this week also made monumental changes in how the U.S. Housing and Urban Development funds service agencies — diverging from the “Housing First” strategy of  the past decade. The Trump administration favors transitional beds and mental health care, but with only a fraction of the money historically available.

Meeting the unique challenges of Fresno’s unhoused while pivoting from the status quo built out over the past 15 years will mean taking a serious inventory of every available resource.

Gone are the days when money can be simply thrown at the problem, said Fresno County Supervisor Luis Chavez. He said it will take strategizing among existing groups. Separately, he said the city and county are working together to address the shelter bed crisis.

“It’s not going to be easy because I think everybody’s in their space and they’re doing their work in their silos, but I think that time has come and gone because of resources that are not going to be coming down the pipeline,” Chavez said at the meeting. “But more importantly, our residents are kind of tired of hearing the same conversation over and over.”

County Will Have to Coordinate Breadth of Resources

Taking over the county’s housing office is Dylan McCully, now the homelessness program manager, who answers to Deputy County Administrative Officer Amina Flores-Becker. The new agency will be staffed with five people from the Department of Social Services.

The county replaces Fresno Housing as the manager of the Fresno Madera Continuum of Care — the agency with a three-fold job of overseeing state and federal homeless money, operating its Coordinated Entry System, and conducting the biennial count of homeless people.

The entry system acts as the portal connecting homeless people with the specific agency for their personalized needs.

While Fresno Housing will still be involved with the continuum, a spokesperson said it will focus on its primary mission of developing affordable housing and administering housing vouchers. The spokesperson said the decision came after discussion with the county and the continuum.

“We agreed that Fresno County is better positioned to serve in that lead role given its broad responsibility for health, behavioral health, and social services,” the spokesperson said. Fresno Housing will still manage much of the data management and reporting.

In 2024, HUD gave the CoC $14 million, said Amina Flores-Becker. The state gives about $11 million through its Homeless Housing, Assistance and Prevention grant that the county already oversees.

With the county taking over CoC’s role, it will have a larger voice distributing that money. Flores-Becker said she has spent the last few weeks with behavioral health department director Susan Holt meeting with rural communities about their needs.

Flores-Becker told GV Wire the main goal for the county is to bring together the diversity of housing and services so accessing them can be easier for the unhoused and the professionals trying to help them.

“Coordinated entry is really that, getting all of those different shelter-like models to at least speak the same language and coordinate with each other,” Flores-Becker said. “That way our folks, when they’re doing street outreach or clinicians as they’re engaging with clients, they know what all the different options are and how to refer clients.

County Will Bring Accountability to CoC: Flores-Becker

The continuum has an executive group made up of county representatives, Fresno Housing, city of Fresno, Madera County, and city of Clovis.

But the 60 voting members caused consternation with Fresno County Supervisor Brian Pacheco, who said he’s skeptical of the level of bureaucracy within the the continuum.

He said that despite the many millions of dollars invested in homelessness efforts, “we’re no better today than we were five years ago.”

Having the county step in to oversee the continuum brings accountability, said Dez Martinez, a Fresno homeless advocate, who told supervisors she wants a seat on the board.

“They have so many people on that team that are voting for themselves. They have service team members, people that have shelters on the board that are voting for the money,” Martinez said. “The money always stays with them.”

Continuum rules prevent board members from voting on funding for their own agencies, said Flores-Becker. But having the county take over the managerial role brings accountability, she said. She also said that the county will look at how to improve operations.

“The system isn’t perfect and there are various things within the CoC structure that I’m very interested in exploring changing,” Flores-Becker said.

About Six Housing Projects in Jeopardy With Federal Changes

This month, Trump issued fundamental changes to how HUD funds housing projects, moving away from the housing-first model that many say did not adequately address mental health or drug issues.

“Our philosophy for addressing the homelessness crisis will now define success not by dollars or housing units filled, but by how many people achieve long-term self-sufficiency and recovery,” said HUD Secretary Scott Turner in a news release.

The nation’s roughly 385 continuums of care will have to compete for $3.9 billion, favoring transitional housing away from permanent housing.

Nearly 75% of the continuum’s funding goes toward permanent housing projects, said McCully, the county’s homelessness program manager. That means about a half-dozen permanent housing projects that will have to either pivot to transitional housing or find new funding sources.

“The CoC is going through a process of ‘what do we need to retain?’ And it’s based on performance as well,” McCully said. “They’re looking at how to prioritize some of those permanent housing projects to retain some inventory and then the remainder of the balance would need to be transitioned to other temporary projects that are being prioritized by the administration.”