‘Move Out, Immediately:' Trump's vision for ridding DC streets of homeless

USA Today

a day ago

The president has vowed to use "involuntary commitment" to detain people sleeping on the streets of DC.
As President Donald Trump prepares to send 800 National Guard troops to the nation's capital to crack down on crime and homelessness, social workers and local officials are worried the president's proposal will only worsen the problem.
Trump plans to seize control of Washington's Metropolitan Police Department, sweep homeless people off the city's streets, and end 'crime, bloodshed, bedlam and squalor and worse,' he said at an Aug. 11 press conference.
'We're going to be removing homeless encampments from beautiful parks, which now, a lot of people can't walk on,' Trump told reporters, adding that his administration is getting 'rid of the people from underpasses and public spaces from all over the city.'
More: Drastic changes coming to homeless services, new Trump order promises
But it's unclear exactly how the president's order for people sleeping outdoors to "move out, immediately" would actually work. In the Aug. 11 order, the president offered few specific details on the logistics of the effort. He told reporters there were 'many places' people could go and his administration planned to 'help them as much as you can help.'
According to the National Alliance to End Homelessness, there were about 5,600 homeless people in Washington, DC down from about 8,300 in 2016. Of those homeless people counted in January 2025, about 1,000 were sleeping on the streets any given night. The majority of the rest were either staying with friends, in hotels or in one of the city's shelters.
There are about 3,200 emergency shelter beds in the city, and about another 1,000 beds in shelters for people transitioning into more permanent housing, according to the DC-based Community Partnership for the Prevention of Homelessness.
Donald Whitehead, executive director of the National Coalition for the Homeless said all of those shelters are currently at capacity, creating more uncertainty over where Trump would move people on the streets. Whitehead questioned whether the president would consider jailing the homeless, sending them to an unknown location or moving them outside of the city.
Advocates question Trump approach
In an Aug. 10 social media post, Trump suggested he would move people sleeping outside 'FAR from the Capital.'
But Washington Legal Clinic for the Homeless, a nonprofit providing legal aid to people experiencing homelessness, argued the president does not have the power to move people outside the city's borders.
"No one can be banished from a jurisdiction. We will not stand by if the federal government attempts to abuse its power against our community in this way," the group said in a post on X, formerly known as Twitter.
The president has also promised in recent weeks to use more "involuntary commitment" to detain people sleeping in public ‒ the process in which mental health workers can forcibly detain and medicate people against their will. His order comes after a landmark 2024 Supreme Court ruling said cities could punish people for sleeping and camping on public property.
DC Attorney General Brian Schwalb warned area hospitals to expect more patients as a result of the involuntary commitment, Washingtonian magazine reported.
"There is no crime emergency in the District of Columbia," Schwalb said in an Aug. 11 social media post. "Violent crime in DC reached historic 30-year lows last year, and is down another 26% so far this year. We are considering all of our options and will do what is necessary to protect the rights and safety of District residents."
Schwalb also called Trump's actions "unprecedented, unnecessary, and unlawful."
Advocates for homeless communities have said Trump's plan is dehumanizing and more expensive than other methods of decreasing homelessness, namely providing permanent housing with support services. Low wages and the high cost of housing and are major causes of homelessness in DC.
Insha Rahman, vice president of advocacy at the Vera Institue of Justice, a nonprofit organization focused on criminal justice, said homelessness is an economic and public health issue, rather than a criminal one.
"Tent encampment sweeps and threats of criminalization will not solve the problem," she said. "Proven interventions like sustained outreach to connect people to service and supportive housing, interim housing or permanent housing, as well as other stabilizing benefits like cash assistance, will."
Researchers at the University of Southern California attributed a drop in homelessness in Los Angeles to increased outreach efforts over the last few years, for example. The unsheltered population dropped by 14% in LA County in the past two years, as programs moving people into temporary housing expanded.
Jesse Rabinowitz, communications director for the National Homelessness Law Center, pointed to statistics that show homeless people are more likely to be the victims of crime, rather than the perpetrators.
A 2022 report published by the National Coalition for Homelessness found nearly 2,000 incidents of violence against homeless people since the start of the century. It suggested there was a link between policies prohibiting homelessness and a rise in violence against those without shelter.
'We know that housing plus support solves homelessness, there just isn't enough housing to go around,' Rabinowitz said. 'The truth is we've tried institutionalization as a country … It never works.'