Homeless camps in Washington, D.C., have been cleared in President Donald Trump’s crime-fighting takeover as Attorney General Pam Bondi replaced the city’s police commissioner with the Drug Enforcement Administration chief.
Trump announced Monday he was placing the D.C. police department under direct federal control and deploying the National Guard to “rescue our nation’s capital from crime, bloodshed, bedlam, and squalor, and worse,” despite violent crime declining in recent years.
Mayor Muriel Bowser has criticized the federal takeover, calling the move “unsettling and unprecedented,” and even “authoritarian.”
Troops started hitting the streets of Washington Tuesday evening, and by Thursday, all 800 soldiers that had been deployed were mobilized, The New York Times reported, citing the Pentagon.
Also on Thursday, Bondi named DEA head Terry Cole as D.C.’s “emergency police commissioner.” With Cole in this role, local police must get his approval before issuing any orders.
Some of D.C.’s homeless population started to pack up their belongings Thursday as they braced for encampment sweeps.
An earth mover was seen scooping away the remains of encampments near the Institute of Peace building, the Associated Press reported.
Members of the city’s Health and Human Services department began clearing an encampment near the Kennedy Center Thursday morning, perThe Washington Post.
“I’d like to invite the president to spend some time here in a tent with us,” William Wilson, 66, told the publication, adding, “We’re nice people.”
On Sunday, Trump wrote on Truth Social, "The Homeless have to move out, IMMEDIATELY.”
"We will give you places to stay, but FAR from the Capital. The Criminals, you don't have to move out. We're going to put you in jail where you belong,” he said.
Roughly 70 homeless encampments in D.C. have been removed since March, according to White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt.
Homelessness has decreased by 9 percent since 2024, according to a May press release from Bowser.
While outreach workers have helped the homeless population pack up their belongings, issues are being raised about what happens next for these people.
Amber Harding, executive director of the Washington Legal Clinic for the Homeless, told The Washington Post, “Shelters have a two-bag maximum, so people might not want to go to a shelter if they don’t want to throw away their stuff that can’t fit into two bags.”
Harding also pointed to the location of the government shelters as another issue, since they are not downtown.
“That means people will have to be transported there, which means moving away from where they are currently staying, from the people they know and the places where they are currently getting services,” she said.
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Tourists greeted by National Guard patrolling DC landmarks on Thursday morning
