Current Events > Trump administration looking to further criminalize the homeless

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https://www.citylab.com/equity/2019/12/trump-policy-homeless-executive-order-city-services-shelters/603670/

The White House is taking steps toward decisive new action on homelessness, bucking policies favored by advocates in favor of an aggressive approach that centers the role of law enforcement. Some of these efforts hit roadblocks this week, but more measures are in the worksincluding a rumored executive order on homeless encampments.

Advocates say that they expect an executive order on homelessness to assign new resources to police departments to remove homeless encampments and even strip housing funds from cities that choose to tolerate these encampments. Its one of several efforts being steered by the White Houses Domestic Policy Council in concert with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

On Monday, Housing Secretary Ben Carson met with local officials in Houston, part of a push for federal action on homelessness that could soon take shape in cities across the country. The secretary visited an emergency shelter and was slated to tour a former Harris County jail facility, according to advocates familiar with his agenda. Officials at HUD have been looking at real estate in several cities since the fall, when President Donald Trump ordered a sweeping federal response to homelessness.

Carsons latest stop is yet another signal that the administration is keen to take a hands-on approach to people who sleep on the street. Advocates say that the government is looking closely at ways to turn former correctional facilities and federal buildings into shelters, a controversial approach backed by Robert Marbut, the newly appointed White House czar on homelessness.

One advocate for a Washington, D.C.-based housing organization says that HUD has narrowed its focus to a list of 24 cities and states, all of which have large numbers of unhoused people sleeping outside. Most are located on the West Coast, where Trump has sought to embarrass progressive officials by intervening. Houston is among the cities on this list, obtained by CityLab, where local and regional bodies known as continuums of care (CoCs) face high unsheltered counts. In addition to 20 cities, four of the places named on the list are states that have homeless populations outside the largest urban centers.

While Houston made its way onto HUDs potential action list, the city has made significant progress in recent years in curbing homelessness, especially relative to other cities in Texas. Over the last decade, the city has cut the number of people experiencing homelessness by more than half. And despite a recent increase following Hurricane Harvey, the trend is still stable or downward, unlike in Dallas, Austin, and other places.

Yet housing advocates fear that the White House favors a punitive approach for Houston, whereas in other Texas citieshomeless encampments are increasingly visible. I hope that what [Carson] takes away is that if you really turn all your resources to permanent housing and ending homelessness, instead of managing the condition of homelessness, it can have dramatic results, says Eva Thibeaudeau, CEO of Temenos, a community development corporation that operates about 140 performance supporting housing units in Houston.

Since 2011, the city has marked a 54 percent decline in people experiencing homelessness, according to local point-in-time counts. Thibeaudeau credits the falling numbers of people living on the streets to the citys adherence to a set of principles known as Housing First. The policy has enabled Houston to put more than 18,000 people into permanent housing situations with their own leases. We shifted a lot of dollars out of short-term, temporary, high-barrier projects, and reallocated them all toward permanent solutions, Thibeaudeau says. That really is the reason that our homelessness has been driven down.

Housing First runs contrary to the approach favored by Marbut, the consultant who was named director of the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness last week. Marbut has pushed for shelters that set up barriers to treatment, namely sobriety. For example, at Haven for Hope, a shelter founded by Marbut in San Antonio, homeless people with substance-abuse problems must sleep outside in an exposed courtyard until they can pass a drug test.

In Houston, Temenos manages so-called wet housing: The group works with city and county officials and sobering centers to identify people struggling with long-term alcoholism and addiction who are facing chronic homelessness and give them permanent support, including three meals per day and a lease.

In September, when the White House released a report on homelessness, it signaled a change away from the Housing First direction long favored by the Interagency Council on Homelessness. Going forward, the administration appears to be leaning on a prominent role for law enforcement, with a focus on shelters that sequester homeless people away from downtown in large, centralized facilities.

Late in November, an official at HUD sent an email to Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler and other officials in Oregon to express Carsons interest in determining whether an unused jail in Portland could be repurposed for a pilot program to address homelessness, according to a report in Willamette Week. And in September, Carson and other officials at HUD visited a former federal office building just outside Los Angeles, a move that sparked fears among housing advocates that the Trump administration could be planning a crackdown on Skid Rows unhoused population.

The Trump administration may pursue its agenda on homelessness on other fronts. An executive ordersaid to be the brainchild of Benjamin Hobbs, special assistant to the president for domestic policymight not materialize for weeks (if ever). But such an executive action would reinforce the dynamic in Texas, where the conservative governor has sought to overrule the work of liberal leaders in Austin to legalize tent encampments, for example.

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I guess killing them is one way to solve the issue. Good, wholesome, Christian values.

Who doesn't remember the time Jesus preached for not helping the less fortunate? For ignoring the suffering and punishing the ill?

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I hope every single homeless Person in America gathers at Mar a Lago and pisses on his golf course

Funkydog posted...

I guess killing them is one way to solve the issue. Good, wholesome, Christian values.

Who doesn't remember the time Jesus preached for not helping the less fortunate? For ignoring the suffering and punishing the ill?

CINO's

More internment camps for homeless sheesh Trump sure loves his camps

That's pretty lame, I remember during the Republican debates the rest of the candidates were shiting on him for saying that he wasn't going to let people die in the streets smh

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The homeless are American citizens.

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Fair, next.

They point to Houston, the one city listed that manages to "lower" (by physical headcount) it's homeless numbers.
When you look at the other cities on the list, how homelessness is growing, it's clear that current methods aren't working.

Homelessness is a complex issue because the individuals are often mentally ill or addicted to substances. Theres nothing that will change that, all you can do is throw money at them through social welfare programs.

I know a lot of homeless people that dont even want to try to change. Its bad

Im sure jesus would be proud of the government his followers worship.

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they're already doing something about it... cops find anyone sleeping on the street in any public place they wake em up. read them the enforcement of unlawful lodging and give them a 700$ fine.
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kingdrake2 posted...

they're already doing something about it... cops find anyone sleeping on the street in any public place they wake em up. read them the enforcement of unlawful lodging and give them a 700$ fine.

How us a homeless person going to pay a $700 dollar fine?

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Duncanwii posted...

How us a homeless person going to pay a $700 dollar fine?

They don't

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Funkydog posted...

I guess killing them is one way to solve the issue. Good, wholesome, Christian values.

Who doesn't remember the time Jesus preached for not helping the less fortunate? For ignoring the suffering and punishing the ill?

Those certain types of Christians only read the old testament and replace the new testament with Fox News. Not even printing Jesus' words in red ink can get these Christians to read them.

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Duncanwii posted...

How us a homeless person going to pay a $700 dollar fine?

They need to follow the law and its majestic equality.
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Duncanwii posted...

How us a homeless person going to pay a $700 dollar fine?

They can't and aren't expected to. They then end up in jail and make money for its owners, or die and are considered "no longer a problem"

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Trump: I am INNOCENT! This is a WITCH HUNT! I have NEVER done anything wrong in my LIFE!

Also Trump: Muslims are terrorists, Mexicans are rapist drug-selling murderers, illegal immigrants are subhuman and the homeless deserve to be put in camps. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN

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Yeah, moving on from immigrants to homeless people.

Fuck Trump.

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I hope when Trump's Presidency ends his business goes to shit and his kids are left completely broke and homeless

It'd be great to see Don Jr and the Paris Hilton wanabe digging through a New York dumpster