A homeless person lies on the sidewalk in New York on Dec. 27, 2024. (Credit: Selcuk Acar/Anadolu)
For years, Americans have been told that “compassion” for the homeless meant writing ever-larger checks – more money, more programs and far less accountability.
Now, at last, we have some answers for why homelessness has exploded even amid a tripling of public spending.
A groundbreaking investigation, “Infiltrated” – backed by more than 50 pages of documentation from the Capital Research Center in cooperation with Discovery Institute – pulls back the curtain on a vast system of corruption. It reveals how billions in taxpayer funds intended to lift people out of homelessness have instead bankrolled radical activism and anti-American political agendas, betraying both the taxpayers who fund it and the homeless they were meant to help.
Despite unprecedented resources, homelessness in the United States now stands at its highest level in U.S. history. “Infiltrated” details how the nation’s most prominent “homeless advocacy” organizations have been weaponized against the very people they claim to serve – redirecting compassion into ideology and dependency into power.
It exposes how radical networks have quietly embedded themselves within leading homelessness nonprofits, sharing infrastructure, donors and ideology.
What began as a movement rooted in compassion has metastasized into what can only be described as a Homelessness Industrial Complex – a sprawling web of nonprofits, bureaucrats and activists feeding off the very crisis they claim to solve.
They’ve built an empire of corruption draped in “evidence-based” slogans that shield politics, protect paychecks and betray the vulnerable.
The report lays it bare: these networks posture as defenders of America’s homeless, yet in truth, they have become their greatest exploiters, dependent on failure to sustain power.
The origins trace back to 2013, when the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) enshrined Housing First as federal doctrine. Promising to “end homelessness in a decade,” HUD stripped away requirements for treatment and accountability, effectively institutionalizing a policy.
The result? Spending soared. Grants proliferated. Outcomes collapsed.
The Supreme Court’s Grants Pass v. Johnson case further exposed the rot. Over 700 nonprofits – collectively taking in $2.9 billion in government grants – filed briefs defending public encampments and opposing enforcement of anti-camping laws as “cruel and unusual punishment.” Their concern wasn’t compassion – it was the preservation of their money pot.
Private foundations joined the crusade.
Major philanthropic giants – Ford, Robert Wood Johnson and Gates Foundations – poured billions into Housing First and “equity” initiatives to promote ideology under the guise of helping the homeless.
Donor-advised funds masked the flow of money, enabling anonymous advocacy giving that blurred the line between charity and politics. (Read more: Fox News, 10/29/2025) (Archive)