Latest news with #NationalCoalitionForTheHomeless
CBC
3 days ago
- Politics
- CBC
'Residents are terrified': advocate reacts as National Guard patrols in D.C.
Donald Whitehead, executive director of the National Coalition for the Homeless, says the deployment of the National Guard in Washington, D.C., 'undermines' the evidence-based work that has been done, after U.S. President Donald Trump announced Monday he would deploy the guard and take over the district's police department, citing a crime emergency in the area.
Daily Mail
25-07-2025
- Politics
- Daily Mail
Trump pushes bold new plan to remove ALL homeless off city streets
Donald Trump 's latest executive order directs cities and states to clear homeless encampments and move people into treatment centers. The president is having Attorney General Pam Bondi take charge in overturning state and federal legal precedents that limit local efforts to dismantle homeless camps – though it remains unclear how she can unilaterally overturn these decisions. A Supreme Court decision in 2024 allows cities to ban homeless camping, setting the stage for Trump's order on Thursday. But advocates for the unhoused claim the move will only worsen the homelessness problem. The National Coalition for the Homeless said it undermines legal protections for homeless and mentally ill individuals. The group added that the Trump administration has 'a concerning record of disregarding civil rights and due process.' Trump wants people living in homeless encampments to be directed to facilities for treatment of mental health problems and addiction. It's not immediately clear if there are any plans to expand the availability of government-funded treatment centers. In 2024, about 771,480 people were homeless in the U.S. on a single night. This represented an 18 percent increase from the same statistic in 2023, according to the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness. Of those homeless in 2024, approximately 36 percent were unsheltered, which means they were living on the streets, in vehicles or in encampments, according to the point-in-time count from the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). Trump's order gives preference in federal grant-making to cities that enforce bans on public camping, drug use and squatting. It also blocks funding for supervised drug-use sites, which is already a controversial effort. These areas – known as supervised injection sites (SIS) – are where people can go to use illegal drugs under the supervision of medical professionals. They usually provide the addicts with clean injection supplies in a hygienic environment and eliminate the fear of arrest even though they're using illegal substances. Trump has long railed against the homelessness problem in U.S. cities – specifically calling out the encampments in Washington, D.C. that he says degrade the reverence of the nation's capital. Asked Friday morning about the homeless camp outside the White House, Trump lamented: 'I think it's terrible, and we'll have them removed immediately.' He called on Democratic Mayor Muriel Bowser to 'run this city properly.' The president again issued his threat to revoke 'home rule' and take over control of the District. Trump asked the reporter on the South Lawn on Friday where they saw the homeless people were posted up and vowed to have that taken care of as he jets off for a trip to Scotland. The National Homelessness Law Center said this new Trump order, combined with budget cuts for housing and healthcare, will cause homelessness to surge in the U.S. 'Forced treatment is unethical, ineffective, and illegal... these actions will push more people into homelessness and divert resources away from those in need,' the ground lamented. Other advocates say the order risks criminalizing homelessness by pushing people off the streets without guaranteed housing, worsening the crisis. Many experts see the origin of the U.S. homelessness crisis stemming from the closure of psychiatric hospitals in the 1960s and 1970s in favor of community care. Advocates say this shift was never fully funded or effectively implemented, leaving many people with serious mental illness without care or housing. Other contributing causes, experts say, are a severe shortage of affordable housing, rising poverty and cuts to public housing assistance programs.
