A new executive order tackles causes of homelessness. Why are some advocates worried?

0:00Clearing out homeless encampments was a recurring feature of then-candidate Donald Trump's 2024 campaign. Our once great cities have become unlivable, unsanitary nightmares, surrendered to the homeless, the drug addicted and the violent and dangerously deranged. Now, President Trump is aiming to fundamentally shift how this country manages homelessness. He signed a new executive order last week that calls for changes that would make it easier for states and cities to move people living on the streets into treatment for mental illness or addiction. It's something that conservatives have been lobbying for for years.

0:41Either because of the longstanding lack of medication or certain disorders that make them unable to help themselves. This is really that crucial safety net at the bottom to make sure that they don't continue to fall through the cracks and die on the street. That's Devin Kurtz, a policy director with the conservative Cicero Institute think tank. But other advocates who focus on homelessness, even those who agree that access to treatment is a good thing, say that forcing people into treatment may not be realistic. Right now there aren't enough services. So many people want to get help, but they can't afford it or the wait lists are too long.

1:17This executive order does nothing to address that. That is Jesse Rabinowitz of the National Homelessness Law Center. He and other advocates say addressing an ongoing shortage of affordable housing is the best way to tackle homelessness. Rabinowitz says the new executive order does nothing to address the housing shortage. And at least one local leader has an even sharper critique of the order. In an interview with NPR's Morning Edition, Mayor Aaliyah Gaskins of Alexandria, Virginia, called it a, quote, callous command and control approach. It requires states and cities like mine to demonstrate aggressive enforcement.

1:54It ends support for housing first policies. It encourages the expanded use of law enforcement all at a time when we know that the criminalization of homelessness doesn't work. Gaskins says putting money towards housing first, along with investments in mental health services, has helped ease homelessness in her city. But because the executive order calls for money to go to local governments that prioritize crackdowns on illegal drug use and urban camping, among other things, instead of places that prioritize affordable housing, Gaskins also says this. It makes the control of how we pursue homelessness and how we work to end homelessness in our community, it puts federal funding at risk.

2:36We might lose the funding to be able to do what is actually working in our community. and that people who are on the streets, who we have been working to build relationships with, who we are in the process of getting them the support they need, could potentially be arrested. Consider this. The Trump administration says the federal government has spent tens of billions of dollars on housing without addressing the root causes of homelessness. But critics worry that this new executive order will not solve those root causes either. After the break, we'll explore the potential impacts of this policy shift.

3:15From NPR, I'm Elsa Chang.

3:25It's Consider This from NPR. President Trump's executive order last week marks a fundamental shift on the approach to homelessness. It moves away from housing-first programs and towards mental health and addiction treatment, including involuntary civil commitment for people deemed to be a risk to themselves or others. Anne Oliva is CEO of the National Alliance to End Homelessness. I spoke with her about the consequences of the president's executive order, and I asked her what kind of policy changes we might see at local levels. The executive order attacks evidence-based approaches and specifically the approach that's called housing first that has been in use by homeless services providers and the federal government for many years.

4:13And really what that does is ensure that folks have access to housing as the first step towards ending instability and homelessness for people. And once they have access to housing, then services like health care, mental health care, addiction treatment, job training or other supports are provided so that they can maintain that housing in the long run. The second very alarming item is basically a call for forced institutionalization under a guise of sort of promoting public safety. And the third is that it eliminates fundamental privacy protections for people who are experiencing homelessness in that it would require recipients of federal funding to collect personal health-related information and share that with law enforcement.

5:02I want to return to the first point that you made, that this executive order attacks evidence-based approaches. What does the evidence say about what approaches work when it comes to homeless populations? The evidence is really clear on what works to end homelessness. The common denominator among everyone experiencing homelessness is that they can't afford a safe place to live. Right. Evidence tells us that when we couple safe and affordable housing with the services that people want and need to maintain stability, that folks can keep that housing over the long term. It's one of the most studied interventions, this idea of coupling housing and services.

5:50Well, let me ask you, if the federal government expands efforts to force hundreds of thousands of people off the streets into some kind of civil confinement, I mean, where would the government even send these people? Are there even enough shelters or care facilities for so many individuals? I think we really have to ask ourselves, what is this executive order trying to do? And as it looks to expand civil commitment, and we know we don't have enough shelter beds in almost any community across the country, what does that mean? And I think we're talking about camps. And we've already seen that happen on the immigration front.

6:34Can we talk about what's happening across the country, though? Because more than 100 cities have passed or have strengthened bans on outdoor encampments. I'm talking about across both conservative and Democratic-led parts of the country, including Democratic-led cities like San Francisco. What do you think has led to this broader shift, even across partisan lines? The issue of homelessness is becoming more and more visible to housed people, and it is becoming a political issue in ways that maybe it hadn't been 10 or 15 years ago. And elected leaders across the country are making decisions that are largely political rather than strategic.

7:21And what I mean by that is that from the national level all the way down to the local level, we are not seeing the kinds of investments that we need in affordable housing, in treatment and health care. As a matter of fact, we're seeing, at least at the federal level, a retreat from being able to provide the health care that people want and need in this country. You have talked a lot about how much you believe in the housing first approach to homelessness. And yeah, for two decades, there has been a bipartisan housing first approach. But homelessness has continued to rise. I mean, to record numbers across much of this country.

8:02So I guess I ask you, why not try the Trump administration's approach to see what happens? First, this approach is cruel and dehumanizing to the human beings who are experiencing incredibly traumatic situations in their lives. The second thing that I would say to that question is that the evidence is so strong as to what works to end homelessness. And if we were serious about ending homelessness rather than just removing people from public view, we would invest in approaches that have an evidence-based. And we would make those investments at the scale we need to address the issue nationwide and see if that works.

8:50And if we could do that, I think that we would see incredible progress, like the progress that we've made on ending veteran homelessness. We've cut veteran homelessness by more than 50 percent since 2010. That's evidence. Anne Oliva of the National Alliance to End Homelessness, thank you very much. Thank you so much for having me. This episode was produced by Elena Burnett and Janaki Mehta. It was edited by Ashley Brown and Jeanette Woods. This episode also featured reporting by Jennifer Ludden. Our executive producer is Sammy Yenigan.

9:28It's Consider This from NPR. I'm Elsa Chang.