President Donald Trump signed an executive order Thursday making it easier for local jurisdictions to remove homeless people from the streets. The order directs Attorney General Pam Bondi to “reverse judicial precedents and end consent decrees” that limit jurisdictions’ abilities to relocate homeless people. It also redirects federal resources so that affected homeless people are transferred to rehabilitation and substance misuse facilities. It also directs Bondi to work with Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Housing and Urban Development Secretary Scott Turner and Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy to fast-track federal funding to states and municipalities that crack down on “open illicit drug use, urban camping and loitering, and urban squatting, and track the location of sex offenders.”
In the global economy, when one country sneezes, others catch a cold.
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On Friday, the president suggested the order marked a common-sense approach to the nation’s homelessness problem. “Right outside, there were some tents, and they’re getting rid of them right now, you can’t do that — especially in Washington, DC. I talk to the mayor about it all the time, I said you gotta get rid of the tents,” Trump told a reporter on the White House South Lawn. “We can’t have it — when leaders come to see me to make a trade deal for billions and billions and even trillions of dollars, and they come in and there’s tents outside of the White House, we can’t have that. It doesn’t sound nice.” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement Thursday that the executive order was part of Trump’s commitment to “end homelessness across America.” “By removing vagrant criminals from our streets and redirecting resources toward substance abuse programs, the Trump Administration will ensure that Americans feel safe in their own communities and that individuals suffering from addiction or mental health struggles are able to get the help they need,” she said. Advocates for the homeless condemned the executive orders with some saying that it will make homelessness worse for communities. “These executive orders ignore decades of evidence-based housing and support services in practice. They represent a punitive approach that has consistently failed to resolve homelessness and instead exacerbates the challenges faced by vulnerable individuals,” said Donald Whitehead, executive director of the National Coalition for the Homeless, in a press release.
