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Report slams Trump's DC homeless policy. Should it be a crime to be homeless?
As President Donald Trump tries to forcibly remove homeless people from Washington, D.C., one think tank is warning that policies that criminalize or punish people for sleeping outside are not just cruel, they're ineffective.
Trump plans to seize control of Washington's Metropolitan Police Department and sweep homeless people off the city's streets, he said at an Aug. 11 press conference.
Those steps would go against evidence that anti-homeless laws and actions can exacerbate the problem, according to an Aug. 6 report by Mari Castaldi, director of state housing policy at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP), a nonpartisan Washington-based think tank often described as left-leaning.
When people are removed from public spaces where they've been living, the report noted, they may lose personal property, have traumatic encounters with law enforcement and incur criminal records and fines that make it harder to get a job or rental housing.
"Communities implementing these practices actively hinder people from exiting homelessness, thus worsening, not solving, the nation's homelessness crisis," Castaldi wrote.
Homelessness can lead to jail in many states, cities
"Since 2022, at least eight states have passed — and dozens more have considered — legislation to ticket, fine, or jail people simply for having no safe place to sleep," Castaldi wrote.
What's more, the report said, more than 320 local ordinances to fine or arrest people for sleeping outside have been introduced since the Supreme Court's Grants Pass v. Johnson decision determined that it may be considered a crime. On July 24, Trump signed an executive order making it easier for cities and states to remove homeless people from the streets.
When rental assistance and similar services are well-funded, homelessness declines, the report says, citing such policy experiments in Chattanooga, Tennessee, Los Angeles and among veterans nationally.
The CBPP report is among several that critique policies championed by the Cicero Institute, a think tank that describes itself as nonpartisan. Cicero was founded by Joe Lonsdale, a Silicon Valley entrepreneur who backed Trump's campaign for president in 2024.
More: America's housing is pulling further out of reach, report finds
The policies endorsed by CBPP are "untenable," Cicero argues. "Instead, states should pursue minimally viable shelter options and sanctioned encampments with services. Permanent supportive housing doesn't address homelessness – it creates demand for more homelessness and supports cronyism."
The group also believes that such policies trap the homeless where they are, rather than providing a path to self-sufficiency. "That's why, despite increased spending, homelessness has continued to rise over the past two decades," Cicero says.
Read next: Why do over 1 million Americans live in 'plumbing poverty,' lacking running water?
CBPP and other groups see the increase in homelessness as stemming from a failure to respond to the affordable housing crisis.
"Homelessness is solvable," Castaldi says. "The way forward is not through punishing people for struggling under a flawed system, but through prioritizing supports that can end their homelessness or prevent it from occurring in the first place."
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Should it be a crime to be homeless?
