The Trump administration is encouraging community leaders and state-based groups to pursue a “treatment first” strategy when it comes to tackling the joint problem of addiction and homelessness across the country.
Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Housing and Urban Development Secretary Scott Turner on Wednesday released a 40-page tool kit for federal, state, and local organizations and private sector groups to incorporate addiction recovery as a foundational part of anti-homelessness programs.
Recommended Stories
The “treatment first” approach differs from the more ubiquitous “housing first” or “housing only” models of addressing the homelessness crisis, which emphasize establishing permanent housing before or without drug treatment.
Kennedy said in a press release that the new Best Practices Toolkit for addressing homelessness and addiction “gives communities practical, evidence-based strategies to expand treatment, support lasting recovery, and help people reclaim their independence.”
“Treatment must come first,” Kennedy said. “Recovery begins when we connect people with effective care, not leave them trapped in addiction and homelessness.”
More than 1.4 million people in 2025 were homeless or living in taxpayer-subsidized housing as part of an anti-homelessness campaign, according to the tool kit. Non-elderly homeless people have a 3.5 times higher mortality rate than those with homes.
Roughly three-quarters of homeless people struggle with drug addiction, according to both HUD and HHS, and nearly 8 in 10 suffer from mental health disorders.
Turner said via press release that when it comes to treating the co-occurring homelessness-addiction crises, “housing alone is not enough.”
“This toolkit gives communities a practical playbook designed by experts across the country to put treatment first and help more homeless Americans achieve lasting recovery, stability, and independence,” Turner said.
The new tool kit says the current system, which largely separates addiction recovery services from those that help with housing, is difficult to navigate and focuses on short-term interventions at the expense of long-term solutions.
The tool kit emphasizes a “whole-of-community” approach through different points of care for recovering individuals, ranging from emergency care during an immediate crisis to residential treatment and eventual self-sufficiency.
The document also stresses a preference for offering substance-free housing to prevent relapses that endanger health and recovery, as well as offering phased housing depending upon addiction recovery status.
The announcement comes as the Trump administration has poured hundreds of millions of dollars into the Great American Recovery Initiative, launched in January as a means of better coordinating the national response to the addiction crisis.
Kennedy and HHS adviser Kathryn Burgum, wife of Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, announced in June that more than $700 million would be put into the program to combat drug addiction, mental illness, and homelessness.
Kennedy has been public about his 14-year heroin addiction, which began when he was a teenager following the assassination of his father in 1968. He has been in recovery since 1983. Kathryn Burgum has also been open that she is a recovering alcoholic.
RFK JR. FACT CHECK: ADULT AUTISM DIAGNOSES ARE ON THE RISE, TOO
The White House Office of National Drug Control Policy Director Sara Carter said the new tool kit offers solutions for community-level organizations to “offer hope and healing to Americans struggling with drug addiction and homelessness.”
“Under President Trump’s leadership, we will not abandon those in treatment and recovery from drug addiction because every American is worth fighting for,” Carter said.
