I was horrified to see donald trump’s latest Executive Order on criminalizing homelessness last week. Before I dive into that though, I do want to say I think it is a mistake to villainize trump for over-criminalization when supposed progressives in DC – like the Mayor and some members of the DC Council – treat the unhoused and those experiencing addiction the exact same way. Both liberals and conservatives have wrongly swallowed the line that we can incarcerate ourselves to safety when criminalization has led this country to entrenched chasms between rich and poor and a complete lack of safety and security. 

But to the matter at hand, trump surely outperforms anyone else when it comes to initiating policies that cause harm, defy common sense, and are doomed to fail. This was clearly seen last week when he signed one of his latest Executive Orders on criminalizing homelessness. In this cruel EO, trump financially rewards states that want to implement harmful, ineffective, and costly policies to address homelessness, such as banning homeless encampments, using law enforcement to arrest and detain homeless people, and forcing the institutionalization of people experiencing homelessness. These are draconian enough, but his EO goes even further and instructs the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) to withdraw support for Housing First policies. It requires HUD to mandate that recipients of homelessness assistance participate in mental health or substance abuse treatment as a condition for receiving aid. 

From the National Low Income Housing Coalition, they say

Research shows that Housing First is the most effective approach to ending homelessness and promoting housing stability for individuals transitioning out of homelessness. Moreover, involuntary treatment can be traumatic and may damage the already fragile relationships that people experiencing homelessness have. Coercive approaches do not address individuals’ basic needs and can instead perpetuate cycles of hospitalization, biased police interactions, and increased encounters with the justice system…Instead of cutting funding for proven solutions like Housing First and encouraging harmful methods to tackle homelessness, we must urge policymakers to increase funding for effective federal housing subsidies that are vital for addressing the deep, systemic shortage of affordable housing nationwide.

It is always a mystery to me that politicians LOVE to mandate all kinds of crap for poor people to do to receive aid, but they never mandate a single thing for corporations in the military industrial complex to do to receive the millions and billions we give them! The stupidity! The truth is that politicians of all stripes treat poor people like refuse, to be cast aside so that we are not made uncomfortable by their presence or reminded that the wealth the rest of us enjoy has more to do with our privilege than the mythical idea that picking ourselves by our own bootstraps is the only way to achieve security. 

I remember when I, a privileged, sheltered, wealthy college kid, first encountered poor people in any real way. I was in college in Abilene, Texas in the 1980s. President Reagan, quite trumpian in his own right, slashed the parts of the federal budget that supported poor people, especially those experiencing homelessness, and so vital services no longer existed for so many that needed them. What resulted was an explosion among the unhoused population. Many people lost their access to stable housing as many institutions simply no longer had the budgets to keep people in treatment or in any level of stable housing. 

Even in Abilene, Texas homelessness became an ever-present issue. And thanks to Reagan’s rhetoric, people blamed unhoused people themselves for their predicament. I was a college sophomore and was curious about the real reasons people were homeless. Something told me that blaming homeless people themselves wasn’t sufficient. So, I drove down to where I knew some of the homeless folks hung out; I think it was Oak Street downtown. I went there several times and talked to whoever would I could. It was there that I met one guy named Robert. 

Robert liked to make jokes and I loved to laugh so we ended up hanging out the few times I visited. Robert had fought in the Vietnam War so he could not have been more than his late forties when we met, but he looked like he was in his sixties or seventies. Living on the street ages you. Robert did not like to share too deeply about himself – we mostly laughed to be honest and he loved to laugh at me for hanging out with him rather than with all of the imaginary girlfriends he thought I had (I had none). But from what I can remember, Robert struggled when he came home from the war and fell into drug addiction. He lost jobs he enjoyed – mainly car repair and other fix-it kinds of jobs, because he fell in and out of addiction. And now he was forced into the streets. This was not the life he wanted or chose, but it was the life he had. I remember wondering what kind of life he would have had if there had never been a war in Vietnam. But no one blamed the war or the politicians who lied about it. They just blamed Robert. 

I probably did not go down there more than 5 or 6 times. When I went, I usually would give whatever money I had to Robert (which wasn’t much) and one time I brought a blanket because it got cold. But I only went sporadically and one of the last times I went I noticed Robert wasn’t there. I have no idea where he went or what happened to him. It has been almost forty years since I met Robert and I can say every time I see someone experiencing homelessness to this day I think of him. 

I wished more people I knew had met Robert. Robert was not to blame for his time on the street. Homelessness is a complex issue and there are multiple areas to effectively address in order for the unhoused to gain stable housing. But one thing we know for sure is that criminalizing unhoused people is a surefire way to cause more unneeded suffering and harm; something trump and the DC Mayor and Council seem quite focused on. 

I am afraid we will see more Roberts in our cities and towns in the coming months and years. And I hope I will again stop and talk for a while. I miss hearing Robert laugh.