Donald Trump thinks the solution to homelessness is to protect good White folks from having to see homeless people by rounding them up and putting them in facilities.
Not more affordable housing.
Nope, what would work better than building more affordable housing is giving Trump cronies billion-dollar contracts to put up flimsy tent cities out in the middle of nowhere so that the good White folks not only don’t have to see homeless people, but also, they get to maintain their property values.
That’s where this is going, folks.
We’re a baby step away from this being a money-maker for the connected.
“The Federal Government and the States have spent tens of billions of dollars on failed programs that address homelessness but not its root causes, leaving other citizens vulnerable to public safety threats,” an executive order on homelessness signed by Trump and released on Thursday tells us.
The policy directive from the Trumper still doesn’t address the root causes of homelessness – the utter lack of affordable housing! – instead setting us up for tens of billions of dollars going to more failed programs by “(s)hifting homeless individuals into long-term institutional settings for humane treatment through the appropriate use of civil commitment will restore public order. “
It’s all about public order, is what’s really going on here.
Sweep the problem – HUD pegged the number of those without homes nationwide at 771,800 last year – under the rug.
“Everyone deserves a safe place to live,” stated Donald Whitehead Jr., the executive director of the National Coalition for the Homeless. “These executive orders ignore decades of evidence-based housing and support services in practice. They represent a punitive approach that has consistently failed to resolve homelessness and instead exacerbates the challenges faced by vulnerable individuals.”
The basis of the Trump administration approach is to address what it claims is the root of the problem – that “(n)early two-thirds of homeless individuals report having regularly used hard drugs like methamphetamines, cocaine, or opioids in their lifetimes,” as the first executive order claims.
The Trump EO threatens to withhold HUD funding from states that protect individuals from involuntary commitment to institutional care. The order also proposes allowing Medicaid funding for mental health treatment, which sounds great, except that Trump’s Big Ugly Bill signed back on July 4 gutted Medicaid, to the tune of more than a trillion dollars over the next 10 years.
As Whitehead points out, the assertion that the majority of individuals experiencing unsheltered homelessness are “addicted to drugs, have a mental health disorder, or both” is inaccurate.
The claim disregards the reality that many individuals develop mental health or substance abuse issues after prolonged periods of homelessness due to the lack of safe and affordable housing.
The Trumpers are trying to get around the obvious civil liberties issues arising from their approach by just forcing states and localities to comply with their idea to involuntarily commit folks.
Problem there being, our system doesn’t have the capacity to treat anywhere near the number of people with mental illness and substance abuse issues as it is.
This is where there will be money to be made.
Alligator Alcatraz was just the beginning.
The profit margins on the federal homeless tent cities, apparently, are a lot higher than what builders would get for affordable housing.
It’s all about the bottom line.
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Chris Graham
