A Year-Long Wait for Housing as Union Station Absorbs a $9 Million Federal Cut

The line for a bed at Union Station Homeless Services isn’t moving. According to the Pasadena nonprofit’s chief executive, the wait for interim housing now runs about a year — and the people still out on the sidewalks are the very ones it can’t take in. 

Union Station, which describes itself as the San Gabriel Valley’s largest social service agency for homeless and very low-income residents, says it is absorbing a $9 million loss in federal funding — leaving a budget roughly 20% smaller than the year before. 

What that means day to day, CEO Katie Hill said, is a bottleneck. In written responses to questions, she said transitions to permanent housing that once took three to six months now stretch to a year or more. 

“Since we can’t move more people into permanent housing, we can’t take in any more people and families that are on the street,” she said. 

The wait is not new, but Hill said it has hardened. 

“Right now the waiting list for interim housing is about a year,” she said, adding that the organization is “still having to turn individuals and families away, because we simply don’t have any space.” 

Last year, USHS reported it turned away 700 families between December 2024 and July 2025 because nothing was available, Hill told CalMatters at the time. 

Founded in 1973 as a storefront hospitality center in downtown Pasadena, Union Station is now the lead agency for the region’s Coordinated Entry System, coordinating services across the San Gabriel Valley. Hill’s letter said the organization served 3,941 people over the past year, with about 1,170 moving into permanent housing — figures the organization reported itself. 

The funding loss lands in the middle of a larger upheaval. On June 11, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development suspended the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority — the region’s lead applicant for federal homelessness dollars — from grant activity pending an investigation into alleged mismanagement. LAHSA has sued HUD, arguing the suspension is unlawful, and says roughly $241 million supporting more than 11,000 people across the county is at stake. Hill said the effect on providers is uncertainty. “Funding that typically flows into organizations like Union Station is effectively on hold pending litigation,” she said.

The county has been cutting too. On Feb. 3, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors unanimously approved an $843 million homelessness spending plan that included nearly $200 million in reductions, citing a shortfall of more than $300 million from rising shelter costs and expiring state and federal grants. 

Hill said certain programs are protected regardless of the budget. “Our core outreach, shelter, and food programs will remain no matter what,” she wrote, adding that prevention — keeping people from losing housing in the first place — is a priority. She also said the organization’s Eaton Fire Housing Assistance Program, which has distributed more than $500,000 to fire-affected neighbors, draws on restricted funds that are “not affected by the current government funding restrictions.” 

For a household waiting on that list, the arithmetic is simpler than the budget behind it: a year is a long time to wait for a door that locks.