When the government shutdown landed over public housing this fall, everything froze. HUD is on life support. Conversations in boardrooms turned from strategy to survival. For many residents, there is no understanding of how precarious the situation really is. But for those of us sitting at the intersection of governance and lived experience, the pressure is unmistakable.
In Roanoke, our housing authority serves roughly 5,000 residents. When the federal budget falters, every extension, every short-term fix, feels like another spin of the roulette wheel — and the stakes are human homes. We are asked, month after month, to wait for permission to exhale.
Inside the agency, one question quietly surfaced as we weighed contingency plans, possible layoffs and shrinking operational timelines:…