Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser on Tuesday joined the attorneys general of several other states to sue the federal government over an attempt to cap funding for permanent housing projects.

The change would result in tens of thousands of people losing their homes, according to a news release from Weiser’s office and comes after a separate case against the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) in Rhode Island was ruled in favor of the states.

In that case, the agency had decided last year to impose conditions on billions of dollars worth of funding for Continuum of Care programs, which support housing and other services for homeless people. The vast majority of those funds have supported permanent housing programs, Weiser said.

Now, Weiser said HUD issued a notice of funding opportunity last month that creates a $1.3 billion set-aside for new projects that prioritize transitional housing and caps permanent housing. Such a shift would jeopardize housing for about 97,000 residents of CoC-funded permanent housing across the country.

“Again, HUD is trying to cap funding for permanent housing and set other unlawful conditions on the funds,” Weiser said in the release. “Without action by the court, permanent housing projects will lose funding or see it reduced, resulting in tens of thousands of people being evicted back to the streets, with states and local governments left to pick up the pieces. These actions will make it harder for states to address homelessness.”

In addition to Colorado, the attorneys general of Arizona, California, Connecticut, the District of Columbia, Delaware, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington and Wisconsin, as well as the governors of Kentucky and Pennsylvania, filed the lawsuit.

The suit was filed Tuesday in federal court in Rhode Island.