One day after warning people experiencing homelessness to “move out” of Washington, D.C. “immediately,” Donald Trump said the federal government will begin forcibly “removing” encampments that have turned the city “into a wasteland.”
The city’s Metropolitan Police Department, now under the Trump administration’s control for at least 30 days, is giving the city’s unhoused population the “option” to either enter a shelter or substance abuse and mental health treatment — or go to jail, according to the White House.
“The homelessness problem has ravaged the city,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters Tuesday. “If they refuse, they will be susceptible to fines or to jail time.”
The administration’s latest actions follow a series of executive orders and campaign pledges that criminalize homelessness, making it easier for law enforcement to punish people who are forced to live on the streets.
“What Trump is proposing is government-run detention camps and massive psychiatric asylums,” according to Jesse Rabinowitz, communications and campaign manager with the National Homelessness Law Center in Washington, D.C.
“We have done massive institutionalization in this country. It didn’t work. It was inhumane, and that’s why we don't do it anymore,” he told The Independent. “But Donald Trump wants to take our country backwards.”
Trump’s latest actions are “not effective in addressing homelessness in the district — they are cruel,” according to Renee Willis, president of the National Low-Income Housing Coalition.
“Instead, this is a continuation of the administration’s attacks and efforts to dehumanize the unhoused community,” she added.
On any given night in D.C., nearly 800 people are sleeping on the street, according to the Community Partnership, a homelessness prevention group in the capital. More than 3,200 people are in emergency shelters, the group found.
More people experienced homelessness in the United States in 2024 than at any other point within the last two decades, which is when the federal government began tracking the population.
The crisis has been fueled by the compounded effects of a lack of affordable housing, high costs of living, discrimination, natural disasters, public health crises and safety nets that fail to meet rising demands for support, according to last year’s annual point-in-time survey from the Department of Housing and Urban Development.
Approximately 19,000 people become homeless for the first time every week, according to the National Alliance to End Homelessness.
“Homelessness is not a criminal issue. It is an economic issue,” according to Alliance CEO Ann Oliva. “Across the nation, in red and blue states alike, people are unable to afford their housing, medical care, groceries, and other basic living expenses.”
Trump’s takeover in D.C. “does nothing” to make housing more affordable to the people living there, she said.
In March, Trump signed an executive order directing agencies to remove homeless encampments on federal land within the capital. Since then, the U.S. Park Police have removed more than 70 homeless camps, according to Leavitt. She said the final two encampments would be removed this week.
Last month, Trump signed another executive order empowering cities and states to force people experiencing homelessness into treatment centers.
Advocacy groups have condemned the measures as inhumane and counterproductive, arguing that a “housing first” approach with supportive services is a proven approach to combatting chronic homelessness.
Trump’s latest comments are an attempt to “scapegoat people and deflect from his failures to help people get the housing that they need,” according to Rabinowitz.
“He made it very clear that what starts in D.C. will spread to the rest of the country, and that should terrify everyone,” he told The Independent. “We need safe communities, and we know that safe communities are ones where everyone has their needs met, like housing and support. But Trump isn’t interested in helping people afford housing or helping people get the help they need. He’s only interested in demonizing folks who have no choice but to live outside.”
During his campaign, Trump’s platform promised to “end the nightmare” of the “dangerously deranged” with a plan to “open large parcels of inexpensive land, bring in doctors, psychiatrists, social workers, and drug rehab specialists, and create tent cities where the homeless can be relocated and their problems identified.”
The president vowed to “bring back mental institutions to house and rehabilitate those who are severely mentally ill or dangerously deranged with the goal of reintegrating them back into society.”
While campaigning alongside the president, former “first buddy” Elon Musk repeatedly said he believes government agencies are behind a global conspiracy to make more people homeless to enrich the organizations working to end the crisis. He has called the word “homeless” a “lie” and “propaganda.”
In April, Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency effectively shut down the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness, which coordinates policy to combat homelessness across the federal government. DOGE put all its staff on administrative leave.
The White House has not ruled out forcibly moving people experiencing homelessness out of D.C.
“We’re exploring how we could do that,” Leavitt said.
State and local governments are increasingly implementing “public camping” bans and laws prohibiting sleeping in cars, loitering or asking for money. Last year, the Supreme Court’s conservative majority rejected arguments from a group of unhoused people in Oregon who argued that a series of laws punishing people for sleeping outside was considered cruel and unusual punishment and in violation of the Eighth Amendment. That ruling paved the way for police to ticket, fine or arrest people who are sleeping in public.
“There are many places that they can go, and we're going to help them as much as you can help. But they’ll not be allowed to turn our capital into a wasteland for the world to see,” Trump said during a press briefing on Monday while announcing plans to deploy the National Guard and take over the city’s police department.
“If our capital is dirty, our whole country is dirty, and they don't respect us,” said Trump, referring to other world cities.
Advocacy groups have called on Congress to pass the Housing Not Handcuffs Act, which prohibits the federal government from making it a crime to be homeless. More than a dozen cities have passed similar legislation modeled after the Gloria Johnson Act, which prohibits state and local governments from enforcing laws that make it a crime to be homeless.
“People want support. People want people to be able to get support,” Rabinowitz said. “But the Trump administration is deeply out of touch, and it seems like their only solution to most problems is to demonize people and lock people up.”
