DOGE

DOGE Shut Down This Agency. Now Its Employees Are Back on the Payroll With Nothing To Do.

Shutting down the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness is the right thing to do, but the Trump administration's approach allowed a dozen federal employees to collect paychecks for a year.

Eric Boehm | 10.8.2026 7:30 AM

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A federal agency that coordinates government homelessness programs was supposedly shuttered by the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) in the early days of the second Trump administration.

But the staff at the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness (USICH) were never actually fired. Instead, they were placed on paid administrative leave for several months. Then they were quietly rehired, even though the council has not held a meeting since December 2024 and has been given nothing to do.

"As of May 2026, USICH had 10 full-time employees and a part-time executive director," the Government Accountability Office (GAO) reported in an audit published last week. Staff at the USICH told the GAO that "since their return, they had not received direction from the Council or the executive director on homelessness policies or priorities to guide their work or help them perform........

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