Sacramento, California – President Donald Trump returns to a new approach to removing the displaced from the streets by transporting those who live abroad to large camps with the abolition of mental health and addiction treatment – an aggressive departure from the country’s leading homeless policy, which was first given priority to housing as the best way to combat the crisis.
Trump said in a Video of the presidential campaign. “For those who suffer from a very discomfort mental illness, we will bring them to mental institutions, where they belong, with the aim of re -merging them into society as soon as they are good for management.”
Now that he is in office, the attack on “Housing first“I started.
White House officials have not announced an official policy, but they open the door to the first treatment agenda, while a comprehensive reform engineering for housing and social services programs that make up the backbone of the displacement response system on which cities and provinces depend on all parts of the country. almost 4 billion dollars were allocated last year Lonely. But now, Scott Turner, who heads the Ministry of Housing and Urban Development in Trump – the agency responsible for the Housing and Displacement Finance Department – clarified huge financing discounts and called for a Review of taxpayers spending.
“Thanks to President Trump’s leadership, we are no longer in a usual business situation and the work group in Dog will play an important role in helping to identify waste, fraud and abuse in the end, and in the end it serves the American people better,” Turner said In a statement.
Already proposed recruitment discounts It will strike Part of the agency oversees the displacement of spending and housing, the first initiatives in particular. Trump explained his vision during his campaign, and called for the opening of new treatment facilities on large parcels of government lands – “The cities of tents where the displaced can be transferred and their problems can be determined.” They can receive treatment, rehabilitation, or face arrest. Now in his post, he started turning his attention to the displacement in the streets, in March, Washington, DC, requested, To sweep the campsIt is possible to separate people who have no shelter from their managers and social services providers, and go out of their path into housing.
The administration encourages local governments to follow and inform federal policy It will not be implemented The displacement shrinks “to the extent that the project is required to use the first housing program model.” and, In a modern arrangement “Reducing the scope of the federal bureaucracy”, Trump cut off the American Agency Council from displacement, and the agency responsible for coordinating financing and initiatives between the federal government, states and local agencies, known as the name Care continuity.
“Do not make mistakes that Trump’s reckless attacks throughout the federal government will operate the housing crisis and displacement in societies throughout the country,” said Democratic MP Maxine Waters of Los Angeles in response to the matter.
Support without forced treatment
Housing first It was implemented at the national level in 2004 under the management of George W. Bush to combat chronic displacement, Specific as After I lived in the streets with a disruption for a long period of time. It was expanded during the era of President Barack Obama as America’s plan to attack the displacement and expanded by President Joe Biden, who argued that housing was a basic need, decisive to health.
This policy aims to stabilize the homeless in permanent housing and provide them with supporting social cases and services management without imposing treatment or imposing job or sobriety requirements. Once it falls, the theory begins, the homeless escapes from the chaos of the streets, and then they can work to find a job, care for chronic health conditions, or obtain sober.
“When you are in the streets, all you do every day is to know how to survive,” said Ann Oliva, CEO of the National Alliance to end the displacement. “Housing is the most important intervention that brings a feeling of safety and stability, as it does not constantly try to find food or a safe place to sleep.”
But Trump wants to dare the housing -backed housing initiatives. It is pushing for a punitive approach that would impose fines and potentially imprisonment for the displaced. He wants to delegate sobriety and treatment for mental health as the intervention of the basic displacement – a flagrant reflection of housing first.
This shift has ignited fear and panic among experts and service providers on the front lines, who argue that forcing treatment and criminality of the homeless through fines and prison time simply does not work.
“It will make it much worse,” said Donald Whitheid Junior, Executive Director of the National Alliance of Homeless. “Everyone in treatment programs is not just an effective strategy. The real problem is that we do not have enough housing at reasonable prices.”
Trump is close to ending housing first during his first term when Robert Marbot was used to lead the United States Council between agencies to displace In 2019. connection I pushed Imposing treatment and reducing dependence on social services, while reducing the housing supported by taxpayers. He said that forcing the homeless to obtain realism and entering the treatment would help them achieve self -sufficiency and end the displacement. But Covid-19 stopped these plans.
Now, Marbot said, he believes the president will finish the job.
“Trump knows that what we need to do is re -financing to treatment and recovery,” said Marbot. “The Trump administration focuses on the laser to end housing first. They realized that it was a mistake the first time, and for this reason I was chosen to change it. They still realize it was a mistake.”
Trump officials and administration officials did not answer questions from KFF Health News. No request has been granted to meet Turner. Project 2025 “Delegation“The conservative policy scheme of some of the closest Trump advisers, explicitly calls for the end of housing.
Under attack
Housing not only the attack not only from Republicans who have long criticized the housing supported by taxpayers, but also from Democrats who respond to general frustration over the displaced camps that are doubled throughout the country. Last year, the federal government estimated this More than 770,000 People in the United States were homeless, a standard number. This has increased by 18 % since 2023. While housing grows increasingly, the homeless camps exploded, the city gardens leaked, crowding on the sidewalks, and sensitive waterways, despite unprecedented general spending.
Indeed, cities and countries, liberal and conservative, abandon the displacement in the streets and target the crisis of mental health and addiction. This is true, even in deep blue states like California, where the governor of the state has established Gavin NewsSponsorship“The initiative that can impose treatment although housing is always not available and aims to block financing from cities and provinces that are not clearly clear camps.
San Francisco mayor Daniel Laurie suggested End the damage to damage For drug users. The mayor of Los Angeles Karen Bass gives the priority of surveying operations although the promise of housing or shelter is out of reach. And the mayor of San Jose Matt Mahan He won the support of the first city council For plans for Arrest of people Those who reject the shelter three times in 18 months Converting permanent housing financing To pay the price of expansion in the homeless shelters.
Mahan believes that the liberals and preachers were very “malicious” because housing is not built quickly enough, while investments in shelter and treatment were not enough. “It can not only be about housing first,” he said.
The displacement campaign exploded because the United States Supreme Court made it easy for elected officials and law enforcement agencies to enable and arrest people to live abroad. Jesse Rabinovich, the campaign manager and communications at the National Displacement Center, said that since June, nearly 150 laws have been approved for fines or imprisonment time, with about 45 laws in California alone, said Jesse Rabinovich, the campaign director and communications at the National Center for Displacement.
Rabinovich and other experts say that both Republicans and Democrats are undermining housing first by criminalizing homelessness and conducting camp surveying operations that hinder the ability of workers in the front lines to introduce people into housing and services.
However, there is a dispute over whether the policy will be completely dismantled. Liberal leaders want to maintain current housing and displacement flows while expanding shelters and moving people from the streets. Conservatives blame housing first for the high homelessness and instead they are pushing for compulsory treatment and housing subsidies.
“I thought it was merely a waste of taxpayer’s money because he was not a treatment, but now I think that people were able to stay homeless and addicts,” Marbut said about the first housing approach. He prefers to request behavioral health treatment as a pre -housing condition.
Evidence indicates that housing has first succeeded in transporting homeless people to permanent housing. For example, Systematic review Among 26 studies indicated that, compared to the first treatment, the first housing programs decreased by 88 %. The approach has shown Note improvements In health, reduce costly care in hospitals and emergency room.
Experts say housing was first The lack of funding is severely And its implementation is not equal, with some displacement agencies that take federal funds but do not provide appropriate services or residential places.
“It makes it the wide policy of all displacement makes it vulnerable to the attack in the way it is currently being exposed,” said Philip Mangano, a Republican who led the development of housing first as a major consultant to the displacement of George W. Bush. “The truth is that it is a mixed bag. For some people like those who use materials, the evidence is not yet.”
Others say it was inactive in some places due to the outbreak of dictation, abuse, and Non -accountability.
“This works properly,” said Mark Dunes, director of policies at the University of California, San Francisco. “But I think we have been very polite and very long for a long time about some real inefficiency.”
Jeff Olivet, who succeeded Marbot at the US Council for displacement during the Biden era, said the sites of Maribut and Trump are misleading. He argues that housing has worked first for those who arrived inward, yet the number of people who fall into displacement exceeds those who get housing. He says that there was not enough money to provide residential services and support for all in need.
Olivet said: “Housing first is not related to adhesion to someone in an apartment and hopes for the best.” “It is really related to providing stable housing, accessing health care, mental health, drug use, and supporting people, but does not force them to people.”
This article was produced by KFF Health NewsWhich is published California HealthyinIndependent editorial service for California Health Care Corporation.
KFF Health News is a national news room that produces an in-depth press on health issues and is one of the basic operating programs in KFF-independent source of health policy research, polling, and journalism. Learn more about KFF.
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