Trump's route to Kennedy Center cleared of homeless camps amid DC crackdown

USA Today

2 days ago

The number of homeless in D.C. is down from pandemic levels. The White House said those who remain in encampments will be jailed if they refuse to move.
WASHINGTON ‒ Blocks away from where President Donald Trump announced the latest slate of Kennedy Center honorees, workers began to sweep away homeless encampments along his route to the White House as part of his broader crackdown in the capital city.
The Aug. 13 move comes days after Trump seized control of Washington, D.C.'s local law enforcement, deployed National Guard troops, and ordered people living outside to "immediately" move, suggesting, as the president put it, that they be relocated "FAR from the Capital."
Amber Harding, executive director of the Washington Legal Clinic for the Homeless, said officials cleared at least two tents on a patch of green space near the Kennedy Center as Trump spoke at the performing arts center.
Members of the city's Department of Human Services pinned notices to at least nine other tents in the area, notifying residents that the camps would be broken down and closed if not removed by the following morning.
George Morgan, a lifelong D.C. resident who has lived in the encampment for two months, said he's not sure where he will go. He won't go to a shelter because they wouldn't allow him to bring his American pit bull terrier.
"I'm very concerned," said Morgan, a Trump supporter, about the president's takeover of the city's police force and his mobilization of the National Guard. "I try not to take offense."
He said while he doesn't know where he will go, he's "hopeful God will make a way."
Where are they being taken?
Advocates for the city's homeless population say they're still unclear where the Trump administration expects people living outside to move.
At an Aug. 12 news conference, White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt told reporters homeless people would be "given the option to leave their encampment, to be taken to a homeless shelter, to be offered addiction or mental-health services, and if they refuse, they will be susceptible to fines or to jail time."
She said U.S. Park Police have removed 70 homeless encampments from federal parks since March and are set to clear the remaining two encampments in the city later this week.
Andrew Wassenich, director of policy at Miriam's Kitchen, a local nonprofit that assists the homeless, said Trump's rhetoric and the notices being put on tents appear targeted at scaring homeless people to leave.
"The more people who do that on their own, the easier for them," he said.
So far, Wassenich said the clearing of encampments mirrors past efforts by city officials to move people away from high-traffic areas of the city. In 2023, officials removed a large site of tents at a park near the White House despite pushback from some local officials and homeless advocacy groups.
"They're not solving the homeless problem. It's not going away," Wassenich added. "They're just moving it."
'Minimize the disruption'
Over the weekend, the city's human services department added about 70 beds to homeless shelters to make room for an expected influx of residents, said Rachel Pierre, the agency's acting director. She said that the city's shelters were at capacity when the order took effect, but that additional room could be made.
Wayne Turnage, the deputy mayor of the DC Department of Health and Human Services, said the number of homeless encampments in the city is way down from their pandemic levels.
Turnage said about 100 people are living in encampments today – down from around 300 in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. But advocates said those numbers likely do not include all of the people living outside in D.C. The city counted 900 people living on the streets during a one-night survey in January.
When the city conducts a cleanup or shuts down an encampment, they typically provide residents with a week's notice, Turnage said. But with the new federal order in place, they're telling residents that they should pack up now.
"Our objective is to see that the encampments are closed in an orderly fashion and to extend homeless services to those who are impacted," Turnage said. 'These people are human beings, they're not chess pieces. Their lives are being disrupted, so we have to make sure that we do as much as we can to minimize the disruption."