The White House is making the homeless crisis worse

Washington Post

2 days ago

Jacob Fuller is an organizer and policy writer based in Philadelphia.
In asserting control over the D.C. police force and deploying National Guard troops and federal agents, President Donald Trump has named removing homeless encampments as a top priority.
If only he brought this level of urgency to preventing people from becoming homeless in the first place.
Over the past decade, the number of homeless individuals has increased each year, at a rate that has only accelerated. Last year, rates jumped by 18 percent, totaling 771,480 unhoused individuals in the United States. And the situation is likely to get worse before it gets better. Cuts to health care and food programs, soaring housing costs, and newer proposals by the Trump administration to pare back housing assistance all threaten to worsen homelessness — not just in Washington, but around the country.
For most individuals and families, homelessness is a temporary situation — typically resolved within weeks or days. Programs to prevent and quickly resolve housing crises matter, as prolonged experiences with homelessness can make individual cases even harder to address.
Homelessness in the United States might feel like an intractable problem, but it has not always been on an upward trajectory. Following the 2008 financial crash that led to mass unemployment and housing insecurity, President Barack Obama signed the Homeless Emergency Assistance and Rapid Transition to Housing Act into law. Among its many features, it authorized $2.2 billion for programs focused on quickly putting people back into homes and keeping at-risk people from sliding into homelessness in the first place.
The economy was hit hard by the recession, but from 2010 to 2016, homelessness decreased yearly, ultimately achieving a 15 percent reduction nationally, with veteran homelessness cut in half. Federally backed housing initiatives were widely credited with helping drive the trend.
These gains were already fragile and contingent on appropriate funding levels for effective programs, but the spread of covid-19 kicked the problem into high gear. As housing costs skyrocketed and inflation soared, rates of homelessness followed, especially as pandemic-era aid ran out. Housing costs remain at record levels, and rates of consumer debt have soared, cutting the ability of millions to save money for a crisis.
Now, only months into the second Trump administration, what was already a crisis shows signs of developing into a total calamity. In budget recommendations for 2026, the Department of Housing and Urban Development proposed slashing federal rental assistance by 40 percent, functionally eliminating voucher programs and a two-year time limit on federal rental assistance, putting as many as 1.4 million Americans at risk of losing their homes.
In my conversations with experts working in homeless services across the nation, it's clear we are shockingly unprepared for what's coming.
'Right now, we're in pretty terrifying times in terms of not knowing what's going to happen to our federal grants,' said Haven Wheelock, a harm-reduction manager at the Oregon-based nonprofit Outside In. And though the state's funding might theoretically help fill in the gaps, its legislature is bracing for cuts to Medicaid that will further strain budgets.
Some of these changes might not show up in federal statistics at first glance. According to Dennis Culhane, professor of social policy at the University of Pennsylvania, a large degree of the observed 2024 increase in homelessness was driven by Republican governors shipping migrants to sanctuary cities that moved them into homeless shelters before they could be transitioned to other housing. With the migrant crisis receding, he predicted, those numbers will drop.
But chronic homelessness — extended periods of homelessness typically defined as lasting a year or longer — has gone up significantly and is more at risk. From 2020 to 2024, the number of individuals experiencing chronic homelessness increased by 38 percent, and getting them back into homes is significantly harder than resolving temporary or at-risk cases. Prolonged homelessness can often lead to drug use, which prevents access to services that require sobriety to qualify and increases the likelihood of traumatic brain injuries that could impact an individual's ability to receive care. Though these measures would probably devastate individuals at risk of homelessness, they would also be catastrophic to the communities where they live. In cities, homelessness has been shown to contribute to decreased foot traffic to downtown areas where it's perceived to be high, might decrease ridership of public transportation, and can threaten public health and safety. People in cities know what it's like to see a sudden increase in people experiencing mental health and substance crises, and how even small numbers of unhoused people can change the perception of a neighborhood.
'When they begin self-medicating, they begin this cycle where they may end up in an unstable space, both mentally and environmentally, [and] that will negatively impact the entire community as a whole,' said Sarah Laurel, executive director at Philadelphia-based nonprofit Savage Sisters. She expressed concern for those currently in her recovery program because getting kicked off Medicaid will mean many might go without crucial medication.
We don't have to let this happen — even modest investments can help make a difference. New visions such as the pro-housing 'abundance' movement, as well as a rise in candidates making affordability a central issue, present possibilities for a brighter future with more accessible routes to renting or owning a home. But investment in new and affordable housing is only one part of the picture. To help ensure that individuals who find themselves displaced can quickly bounce back, government assistance programs such as 'housing first' strategies, rental aid and vouchers must be renewed and expanded.