Trump and the Homeless

Trump’s takeover of law enforcement in the District of Columbia, his mobilization of the National Guard and his deployment of other Federal law enforcement personnel to combat the falling crime in the District, has had a lot of talking heads pondering his real motivation. All agree that while he is claiming an emergency exists with skyrocketing crime, that is not supported by any factual evidence. Given his record for lying, it is always safe to assume that whatever justification Trump provides is a lie. The question remains what is his purpose?

A lot of folks assume it is to divert attention from his close relationship with Jeffrey Epstein and I am sure that played into his thought process. Others have pointed to his longstanding animosity towards people of color and the desire to use force against them. Although D.C. is no longer predominantly African American, Trump spends so much time living in the past, that he may not know that and in any event both the mayor and police chief are black and women to boot. So far he has called out the national guard to only one other location, Los Angeles, which also has a black woman as mayor. On the other hand, both D.C. and L.A. are Democrat strongholds and Trump has been campaigning against Democrat run cities since 2016.

Some suggest that Trump viewed D.C.’s falling crime rate as a chance for stolen valor. Presumably, the crime rate in D.C. will not go up with additional law enforcement personnel patrolling the streets and Trump will claim that he has solved crime in D.C. through his take charge approach even if it had nothing to do with reduced crime. He will even claim it as a “promises made, promises kept” situation. Recent polling suggests that combatting crime may be Trump’s best issue even if it is mostly smoke and mirrors.

Others see it as simply more evidence of his fascism with L.A. and D.C. being trial runs for a declaration of martial law when he cancels the mid terms and suspends the Constitution with the full support of the GOP and SCOTUS. While not as far fetched as it should be, I personally do not think he has the mental capacity and energy to pull it off and none of his sycophants carry the sway with the GOP and SCOTUS that he does. I really hope I am right on that one.

I think his real motivation is to forcefully remove the homeless from D.C. He did not have to take over the police, mobilize the national guard and deploy FBI and ICE personnel, to remove homeless from the streets of D.C., but he did not need to do those things to combat crime either. It is very hard for anyone to say that reducing crime is a bad thing even if the methods are overkill. The homeless are viewed as a nuisance by most, but they do garner more empathy than criminals. That is why Trump constantly refers to the homeless as not only drug abusing and mentally ill, but “violent maniacs.” By making his intended clearing out of homeless people a part of his effort to make D.C. safe again, he does not face the same opposition that he might have if he had just gone after the homeless.

That the homeless have been on Trump’s mind goes back to the campaign trail in Iowa where he derided California cities with significant homeless populations and promised to ban “urban camping”. Before the announced takeover of D.C. he issued an executive order on July 24, 2025 titled “Ending Crime and Disorder on America’s Streets” by prioritizing laws against behaviors associated with homelessness, like loitering and camping. Among other things the order challenges the “Home First” bipartisan program which had demonstrated some success in favor of mandatory commitment of mentally ill which had been discontinued decades ago and transitional rehabilitation programs which had not experienced success before being replaced by Home First programs. He also lied about the drug use of the homeless and neglected to reference that over 50% of the sheltered homeless work, while 40 % of the homeless on the streets have jobs of some sort. There has been an increase in homelessness since the pandemic, but not because drug use or mental illness has increased. Rather it has been due to a shortage of affordable housing for many of the working poor, exacerbated by Wall Street types becoming slum landlords and jacking up the rents.

In Grants Pass vs Johnson, the Supreme Court greenlighted criminalizing homelessness overruling lower federal courts which held that communities had to have shelter alternatives, before criminalizing public homelessness. While Trump has suggested that the D.C. homeless will not simply be driven into the wilderness and abandoned, no one in his administration has come up with any details on what will happen to them. The important thing for Trump is that they are out of sight–then he can claim he solved that problem too.