By Molly Balison and Jodi Peterson-Stigers
On July 24, 2025, President Donald J. Trump signed an executive order titled “Ending Crime and Disorder on America’s Streets,” introducing sweeping changes to how homelessness will be handled in cities nationwide.
In the order, Trump declares that “shifting homeless individuals into long-term institutional settings for humane treatment through the appropriate use of civil commitment will restore public order,” and that “surrendering our cities and citizens to disorder and fear is neither compassionate to the homeless nor other citizens.” His “new approach” focuses on civil commitment, forcibly moving unhoused individuals into institutional settings, coupled with strict enforcement of urban camping bans, loitering laws, and drug-use prohibitions.
This comes as the January 2024 Point-in-Time Count recorded 771,400 people experiencing homelessness nationwide,274,224 of them unsheltered, the highest number ever recorded, and an 18% increase from 2023.
While the administration frames the policy as compassionate, it raises urgent and troubling questions:
- Where exactly will people be taken and who decides they must go there?
- What oversight exists to prevent abuse, wrongful detention, or indefinite institutionalization?
- How will forced confinement and treatment impact mental health, dignity, and trust in both government and service providers?
- Why is the priority “treatment before housing” when research overwhelmingly shows housing first is the most effective path to stability?
- Will the criminalization of visible poverty drive people further from services and deeper into crisis?
Possible Impacts on People Experiencing Homelessness
- Loss of choice and autonomy: Individuals could be removed from streets and shelters through civil commitment, not because they’ve secured permanent housing, but because they’ve been placed in long-term institutions, often against their will.
- Displacement instead of stability: Federal funding may increasingly flow to cities that criminalize camping, loitering, and squatting, pushing people from public spaces without offering real housing solutions.
- Erosion of trust in services: The line between care providers and enforcers could blur, making many fearful of seeking help and further isolating those already disconnected from support systems.
Critics warn the order risks stripping the unhoused of basic rights, blurring the line between public safety and state control, and redefining poverty as a crime. Supporters argue it could restore order and give people the help they need but on whose terms and at what cost?
If this policy moves forward, we must ask: Is this truly about compassion or about making homelessness invisible?