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Equal Access Rule Survey

The National Alliance to End Homelessness (NAEH) is conducting a survey of homeless service providers to better understand the anticipated impacts of HUD’s recent proposal, which primarily removes protections from the Equal Access Rule. Your responses will support our ability to accurately inform decision-makers of the impacts of these proposed changes.

Your responses are anonymous, and any information gathered through this survey will be summarized at the national or regional levels.

This survey should take 15-20 minutes to complete, and will be open until 5pm Eastern Time on June 18. We invite you to share this survey with other homeless service providers. If you have questions, please reach out to Alec Vandenberg, NAEH Policy Analyst by emailing avandenberg@naeh.org.

Thank you for your time and insight.
Section 1: Demographic Information

The following questions will help the Alliance better understand the unique impacts of HUD’s proposal on different providers across the country.
1.What state or territory do you work in? (Please list full state or territory name)
2.What type of community do you work in? (Please select all that apply)
3.What services does your organization provide? (Select all the apply)
4.Is your organization a faith-based provider?
5.Does your organization primarily serve people fleeing domestic violence, dating violence, or stalking?
Section 2: Anticipated Impacts
Context: The Equal Access Rule (EAR) ensures that the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) housing programs are open to all eligible individuals and families, regardless of sexual orientation, gender identity, or marital status. The EAR requires that individuals be placed and accommodated in many HUD programs, including temporary emergency shelters, in accordance with their self-identified gender identity.

On April 28th, HUD released a proposal (HUD’s proposal) to make substantive changes to the EAR and also remove the existing protections against discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity in HUD programs. More specifically, HUD’s proposal would:

1. Require organizations to follow a new regulatory definition of “sex”: The proposal removes all references to “gender,” “gender identity,” and “actual or perceived sexual orientation” throughout HUD programs. It replaces these terms with a new definition of “sex” which it defines as an “individual’s immutable biological classification as either male or female.” The proposal also includes subsidiary definitions of “female,” “male,” “woman,” “man,” “girl,” “boy,” “mother,” and “father.” This change applies across nondiscrimination, reporting, recordkeeping, and other regulatory provisions.

2. Require HUD-funded shelters to discriminate against transgender people: Requires all admissions, placement, and accommodation in temporary emergency shelters and other facilities with shared sleeping quarters or bathing facilities to be made in accordance with an individual’s HUD-defined biological sex, rather than self-identified gender identity. Requires grantees to follow the new definitions or risk the loss of federal funds. This would be enforced even if state and local laws conflict with the new guidance and grantees are faced with a loss of state or local funding.

3. Permit providers to require evidence of sex: Removes prohibitions on inquiries into gender identity and allows providers to “require reasonable assurances or evidence to establish a person’s sex.”

4. Remove protections across HUD programs: Removes protections against discrimination based on gender identity and sexual orientation across HUD programs.

The Alliance anticipates HUD’s proposal will carry significant consequences for both operators of facilities with shared sleeping and bathing spaces, and also providers and recipients of HUD funding more broadly.
The following questions will help the Alliance better understand how, as written, HUD’s proposal will impact your work to solve homelessness in your community. On a scale of “strongly disagree” to “strongly agree,” please share the extent to which you perceive HUD’s 2026 proposed changes to the Rule will:
6.Make it easier for my community to end homelessness.
7.Be easy for organizations in my community to implement.
8.Increase participant trust in providers and staff working to end homelessness.
9.Make people feel safer in shelter and housing.
10.Cost my organization additional time and money.
11.Help advance local strategies and plans to end homelessness.
12.Reduce barriers for people seeking assistance.
13.Negatively impact the health of people in my community.
14.Make it more difficult to identify and reach people in need.
15.Help to reduce unsheltered homelessness.
16.Make it harder to end unsheltered homelessness.
Section 3: Open-Ended Comments
17.Since it was updated in 2016, what impact has this Rule had on your ability to solve homelessness?
18.How do you anticipate HUD’s proposal will impact your organization, the people you serve, your local homelessness response system, and the broader community? Which populations would be most impacted by these changes?
19.Based on your experience, does the proposed rule align with best practices for ending homelessness? Why or why not?
20.Has HUD’s policies in the last year had any impact on your willingness to publicly submit comments in response to the Administration’s policies?
21.Is there anything else you’d like to share?